


Kill This Need to be Somebody Else

by throwupsparkles



Category: Bandom, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Agoraphobia, Alternate Universe, Angst, Anxiety, Fluff, Found Family, Happy Ending, M/M, Strangers to Lovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-16
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:14:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 43,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27594671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/throwupsparkles/pseuds/throwupsparkles
Summary: Frank thinks this is the weirdest experience he’s ever had delivering pizzas, and that includes the time some dude in a giant hot dog costume opened the door.Or, the one where Frank is a poet who delivers pizzas, Mikey doesn't look both ways before crossing the street, Ray is still a Guitar God, and Gerard refuses to leave the house.
Relationships: Frank Iero/Gerard Way, Mikey Way/Pete Wentz
Comments: 353
Kudos: 202





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I started this fic back in the summer and then it just sat in my docs collecting dust, so I've decided now is the time to let it see the light of day. 
> 
> Title is from Nowadays by Valleyheart.

Frank knows that he could probably do better than deliver pizzas for a living.

Not that there’s anything wrong with delivering pizzas, he thinks it’s a pretty fucking important job thank you very much. It’s just that his poetry degree is starting to collect dust and his mom keeps shooting him ‘I told you so’ looks. And if he’s being honest, being twenty-three and moving back into his mom’s house is sort of a low blow. He’s trying not to be all sulky about it, but it just fucking sucked to haul his shit back into his childhood bedroom after he packed it up and drove off to college with hopes and naivety.

And the sorta shitty part about going off to college and getting a degree that’s probably not going to get him any sort of job he’d actually like is that he didn’t even really like college. He’d gotten in his head that college was going to be this great experience, that he’d have this huge ‘ah-ha!’ moment and figure out who he was and what the fuck he was doing with his life. Not to sound too angsty, it’s not like he’s got these huge standards for himself. He just wants to be able to make enough money to keep a roof over his head and go out to shows with his friends. And if he gets to feel artistically fulfilled at the same time? Well, that’d be really awesome.

But it was sort of a bummer, spending four years racking up his debt while he took these pretentious classes that he didn’t really think made him a better writer. If anything, he thinks it just made him sound like everyone else in that school. And maybe he’s been hanging around Hambone too much, but he’s starting to think going to universities is just feeding into the corporate agenda while making him think and act like everyone else. That he’s just going to be this mindless drone to keep the capitalist machine working and...wow, ok, maybe he should stop getting stoned on Hambone’s couch.

While it may not get him out of his mom’s house as quickly as he would like, delivering pizzas pays for his car and cigarettes while accumulating slowly in the bank--very slowly. And he likes that most of his job is spent driving around Jersey, smoking and listening to his music. He works with some pretty rad people, except for this dude Kyle who is always scoffing at Frank’s painted nails and eyeliner. But hey, fuck that guy. He honestly hasn’t met a dude named Kyle that he likes anyway.

And he’s met some pretty interesting people on his routes. Sometimes he gets lucky and snags a couple numbers while he’s at it. Though those tend to not go very far since most people who want to fuck their pizza delivery guy just want to reenact their favorite porno.

“Fuck,” he mutters, dropping his lighter down by the pedals. He holds onto his cigarette between his teeth and tries to reach for it blindly, but it’s not really working out and he hasn’t had his nicotine fix for the day yet. His mom’s ‘no smoking’ near the house is really grinding his gears. He glances both directions down the road he’s driving on, then looks down by his feet to snag his bright yellow lighter.

He grabs it and goes to light his cigarette when a figure appears in front of him and Frank has to slam on his breaks. He drops his lighter again and bites into his cigarette. “Fuck!” He shouts, cigarette sticking to his chapped bottom lip.

He throws it onto the passenger seat and sticks his head out the window. “Are you ok?”

The guy he almost ran over is giving him a venomous glare, only his hands are shaking by his sides and Frank feels like the biggest asshole ever. He’s scrawny, with the worst fucking hair he’s ever seen, and the hoodie he’s got on looks like it’s going to swallow him whole. “Hey, kid, are you alright?”

The kid’s eyes narrow before he readjusts his glasses and walks off.

Frank sits there in the middle of the road for a moment, taking deep breaths and reminding himself that he didn’t actually commit vehicular manslaughter, before grabbing his lighter and finally lighting his cigarette. Because, fuck, now he really needs one.

It takes him a little longer than it should to get to the house he’s delivering to, paranoia and shaky hands making him drive under the speed limit and stop longer than necessary at stop signs. Which he thinks should swing karma back in his favor, but he’s late delivering the pizza and the Boomer who answers the door stiffs him on a tip.

“Rough day already?” Ray asks, eyebrows high in surprise.

Ray Toro has pretty much become Frank’s best friend ever since he moved back home. They used to hang out quite a bit when they were younger because their parents went to the same church and Ray had a really awesome music collection when they were in high school. They weren’t really good enough friends to keep in contact when they had split up for college, but apparently close enough to pick up where they left off when Frank came back home.

Ray had dropped out of school to be in a band that never quite took off despite Ray being the best guitarist Frank’s ever seen. It just shows it’s more of who you know instead of what you know, and Frank gets pissy about the state of the music scene because of that. But Ray’s the type of person to just roll with the punches and he still shows up to work every day with a smile on his face like delivering pizzas is exactly what he wants to be doing.

“I almost hit some kid and then this asshole didn’t give me a tip,” Frank grumbles, folding boxes just for something to do.

Ray’s eyebrows get higher. “You almost hit someone?”

“I didn’t do it on purpose,” Frank says, rolling his eyes, “He came out of nowhere.”

“Don’t let Brian know,” Ray warns, “Or you’ll be on phone duty for a week.”

Brian’s that guy who left school way too young to work. He’s told Frank about it before when it was just them cleaning up the shop late into the night with lit cigarettes hanging off their lips. Brian started working the music scene when he was in high school and eventually dropped out to be a full time rep for some label in the midwest. He hopped around on tours until one band burned him too bright and left him stranded in Jersey. But Brian had enough managing experience to find himself work, so here he is in charge of his fellow misfits under the stentch of burnt cheese and disinfectant spray.

And he’s a cool dude. He sometimes takes his job too seriously, but Frank’s sorta learned that Brian yelling at him to not be a moron is just his way of caring. But his punishments are fucking brutual. Phone duty is the worst. Technically they’re all supposed to take turns answering it, but Brian is cruel and likes to use it as punishment for anyone who shows up late or gets a customer complaint. Which Frank doesn’t think is really smart because it’s probably not the best idea to have a grumpy person on the phone. But what does he know?

That he doesn’t want to be stuck answering phones all week, that’s what.

The rest of the day goes by pretty normally after he finally manages to shake off the beginning of his shift. By the time the end of his shift rolls around, he’s laughing with Ray and sticking tomato slices on his forehead.

He’s about to clock out when Brian hands him a pizza. “Last one, then you can clock out.”

“I hate you,” Frank whines, taking the box. He looks at the address and at least it isn’t that far away. If he’s quick about it, he can be there and back in fifteen minutes. But then he’ll have to go home and have family dinner with his mom at their depressingly large dining room table. He loves his mom, obviously, but he hates forcing small talk and trying to make it sound like he’s got his life together. That he’s got a plan and she doesn’t need to worry about him or sigh every time a student loan bill comes in the mail.

Maybe he can find a show to disappear to or he can sit in a movie theater and fill up on popcorn for dinner. He should probably find a diner to sit in and work on submitting his work to different literary magazines or try to convince someone to let him in on their anthology.

He gets in his car and pulls down his visor, since it’s late afternoon and the sun is hanging low. He tries to sit up high so the visor actually blocks his retinas from getting scorched, but he’s too short for it to really do anything. He’s contemplated getting a cushion or something to sit him up higher, but then he realized that would be like sitting in a booster seat and he’s fucking twenty-three.

He’s got some dignity.

The house he pulls up to looks a little worn down. Like it used to look really fucking snazzy or something but the occupants forgot the magic it used to hold. Frank tosses his cigarette out the window and grabs the pizza before stepping out of his car. He has to skip a step leading up to the porch because there’s a huge hole in it and he thinks that’s probably illegal or something.

He gets to the front door and frowns when he sees the sign above the doorbell that says, “Please don’t knock--use bell” written in glitter glue. He really hopes it’s not one of those fancy bells that you can program a song into. Because people who have that get way too excited about their damn doorbell and then want to talk to Frank about it and he’s going to have to try really hard not to tell them that they’re just a fucking tool.

But it’s just a normal doorbell, thank fuck.

Except no one answers the door. Instead he hears something that sounds like a deadbolt unlocking, then feels something against his shin.

He looks down and...what the fuck is he even looking at? There’s this thing poking out of what looks to be a doggie door or something. It looks like one of those gripper things that his mom keeps in the kitchen so Frank can grab cereal down from the highest shelf in the pantry. Which is really embarrassing, yeah, but it’s better than calling out to his mom to help him get his breakfast down like he’s still a kid. It’s bad enough that she’s been washing his underwear again.

But it’s not even that it’s a gripper or whatever the real technical term for it is, it’s that it’s got a dinosaur head and it’s holding a few wrinkled bills in its mouth.

“Uh…” Frank starts.

“You can keep the change,” the person on the other side of the door says, “Just leave the pizza box on the porch.”

Frank thinks this is the weirdest experience he’s ever had delivering pizzas, and that includes the time some dude in a giant hot dog costume opened the door. “Yeah, sure,” Frank says slowly, setting the pizza down on the porch and taking the money out of the dinosaur’s mouth. He jumps a little at the dinosaur head disappearing back through the door, and then the dead bolt clicking loudly.

“Uh, have a good night,” Frank says, scratching his head.

He waits a beat to see if he’ll get a response. When he doesn’t, he makes his way slowly down the steps.

And, sure, maybe he’s a bit of a creep for hovering in his car to see who comes out to finally retrieve the pizza. He gets through the entirety of Bohemian Rhapsody before the door opens slowly. Frank has to strain up against the window of his car like the fucking crazy stalker he is to see a head poke out tentatively. Whoever it is has a mop of messy black hair clumped together and sticking up in places. They look back and forth down the street, as if they’re checking to make sure no one is watching. After a couple minutes they must deem it safe because Frank sees a Batman pajama clad leg step out onto the porch before the person steps fully outside.

They’re hunched in on themselves, scurrying quickly to where Frank left the pizza and then darting back inside before slamming the door.

Frank’s not exactly sure why he hesitates to see if they’ll come back outside, but eventually he puts his car in drive and heads back to the pizza shop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit of a shorter chapter to get us started, but you'll be hearing from me soon. Also kudos to you if you caught the fic reference in the summary ;)
> 
> I've been messaged about bringing back Fic Recs, so we're going to make that a thing again. I'm not just going to link frerard fics though because I'm on a mission to get you all to branch out a bit. Our first fic rec is [All Fair in Love and Comic Books.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16827382) It's such a cute read and both Frank and Gerard's characters are so fucking well done. (It's also important to note that this fic was written before Grant addressed their preferred pronouns.) The artwork is also really awesome, so check out the link on the fic's page.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the love on the first chapter. You all are the best!
> 
> (Also, I've tried to upload this chapter twice now. I fucking hate my internet connection.)

Frank likes to go on walks when he’s got the free time. 

He figures that he’s in his car too much of the time anyway, so it’s nice to slow down and move his legs. He’s got _Static Age_ in his portable CD player and a new pack of smokes, he should be pretty set for the afternoon. 

It’s Frank’s favorite time of year. Each step of his crinkles leaves under his grungy converses that his mom keeps begging him to throw away. The air is crisp and every time the wind picks up, he hugs his denim jacket around him more. His birthday isn’t far from now, and he loves that a few houses he’s passed already have cotton spiderwebs on the bushes or pumpkins out on their front porch. 

He doesn’t live in the best of neighborhoods, but there really isn’t a good neighborhood this side of Jersey. He thinks it sorta just builds character, and he grins as a group of teenagers pile out of a car with lit cigarettes and easy smiles. 

Frank starts to feel this deep longing, then starts to laugh at himself a little. It’s not like he’s old by any means, but he still feels like he maybe should have more to show for himself by now. He’s got some friends from Rutgers who are in grad school or, even more annoyingly, are already getting published while Frank’s mailbox keeps getting filled with rejection letters. 

It’s why he’s out now, trying to find a diner to take residence in until he’s got something decent to send out to the literary magazines. And he doesn’t particularly want to hang around the ones near his house, something about sitting in the places he and his friends used to hang out just seems fucking depressing.

When he stumbles on a diner at an intersection and walks through the doors, he knows he’s found the right place. There’s paper bats hanging from the ceiling and they’ve got plastic bugs all over the counter and pie display. The tables have cheap paper pumpkins and ghosts sitting on top of them and there’s a banner hanging over the counter that says “Happy Halloween” in orange and black letters. 

“Sit wherever,” some guy with pin straight black hair says, grabbing a pot of coffee and motioning with his hand to the tables. 

Frank grabs an empty table in the back corner and slides into the booth, picking up the paper ghost and setting it by the salt and pepper shakers. The guy--his name tag says “Pete or hey you”--flips over the mug that’s sitting on the table and pours coffee in it. “Patrick’s doing pumpkin spiced waffles if you want some.”

Frank grins, pulling his notebook and pen out of his backpack, “Yeah. Maybe in a bit. I’ll use it as an incentive to get some shit done.”

Pete returns the grin. “Are you still in school?”

“Nah,” Franks says, then laughs a little. He’s always had this embarrassing thing where he makes this squeaky laugh whenever he’s nervous or has to talk about himself. It was probably cute when he was seven years old, maybe not now that he’s in his twenties. “I’m, uh, I write.”

Pete gives him a wink and says, “I’ll tell Patrick to save you some batter.”

Frank nods his thanks and watches him stop by tables, chatting up the customers like they’re friends as he refills mugs before slipping behind the counter again. Frank people watches for a bit because-- _no, he’s not procrastinating_ \--he’s gathering inspiration. There’s a couple of business looking men who are drinking coffee and saying things like “margin lines’ and “equity” or whatever, Frank barely made it through his economics class. There’s also some college kids who are on their laptops and practically mainlining their coffee and Frank feels their pain. But the person that really gets to him is the elderly lady sitting a few booths down from him who is cross stitching. She’s got a pile of blue-grey hair piled on top of her head that’s held together with what looks like a pair of chopsticks. There’s a bunch of string sitting on the table next to her, all grouped in color families. And she’s got this soft, totally-at-peace-with-the-world smile on her face and for a moment, Frank wonders if that sort of stillness will ever be obtainable for someone like Frank. 

He’s always been on the move, wild and angry for no fucking reason. Ray would say that he’s not actually angry, he’s _passionate_ . Ray’s honestly too nice for his own good, but Frank feels like there’s this fire in his stomach all the time. Sometimes he’s able listen to his music so loud, it steals his oxygen and stifles the fire. But most of the time, he feels like he’s constantly ablaze. And he doesn’t know why, but he just feels this constant sense of _no one is listening to me_. Maybe it’s his age, maybe he’s nothing original and everyone in their twenties is angry for no reason. And maybe when he hits his grey hair age, he’ll be happy to sit in a diner and thread string through a hoop just for shits and grins. 

Eventually he does manage to take out his notebook and scribble some lines down. He had thought about putting on his headphones again, but Pete’s actually playing some pretty good music. So, he’s able to slip into his zone and he doesn’t look up again until he hears Pete exclaim, “Mikeyway, I was about to send out a search party for you!”

Frank nearly chokes on his coffee when he realizes it’s the kid he almost ran over the other day. And...well, maybe he’s not a kid. Under the fluorescent diner lights, Mikey Way looks washed out and like he’s lived too many years for his age. His eyes are heavy and weighed down by purplish bruises and his forehead looks like it might already have a wrinkle. Poor kid. 

“Sorry I’m late,” Mikey drawls, walking behind the counter and shrugging off his white denim jacket. 

Pete looks at him, and Frank recognizes the look because it’s the same one that Ray gives him whenever Frank hasn’t been able to work out some energy in a pit for a while. “You ok?”

Mikey sighs, and Frank feels a little guilty for staring but he’s sorta curious as to what’s got this kid so run down. “Yeah. I just got behind in school and had to do this paper all last night so I got zero sleep,” he explains then, after some more worried eyebrow wiggles from Pete, admits, “And Gee had a rough morning today.”

Pete purses his lips and throws an arm around Mikey’s shoulders. “Why don’t you grab a muffin from Patrick and get some caffeine in you. I’ll let you know when we get a new table.”

“Thanks,” Mikey mutters, letting Pete steer him towards the double doors that lead to the kitchen. 

Pete looks up and Frank’s cheeks heat when he realizes he’s been caught eavesdropping. He hastily looks down at his notebook, but he hears Pete walking towards him. 

“Ready for some waffles?” Pete asks, pouring some more coffee in his mug. 

Frank looks up and smiles innocently. “Sure, that'd be great.”

“How do you know Mikey?” Pete asks, a meddling smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. 

Frank clams up again, but says, “I, um, almost ran him over the other day.”

Pete snorts and shakes his head. “That kid never looks both ways before crossing. Patrick makes him hold his hand when they cross streets together.”

Frank laughs, and then pauses because he wonders if he’s allowed. 

Pete gives him a knowing look and says, “I’ll have Patrick start on those waffles. Do you want the maple whipped cream on top?”

“Um,” Frank says, eyebrows pulling together, “duh?”

Pete beams at him. “I think I like you…”

“Oh! Frank,” Frank says, when he realizes he never introduced himself.

“Awesome,” Pete says.

*

“...and Patrick’s this really grumpy cook who acts like he’s totally put off about everything, but he’s actually a giant teddy bear,” Frank says, stealing one of the green peppers that Ray just chopped. 

“So you're ditching us for your cooler friends?” Ray teases, tossing another pepper at Frank who catches it in his mouth. 

“Nah,” Frank says, tugging on the end of the strand of Ray’s hair that’s slipped out of his ponytail, “I’d miss your guitar lessons too much.”

Ray snorts. “I’m never trying to teach you flamenco again, you whine way too much. It’s not my fault you have weak fingers.”

“I do not have weak fingers, some of us weren’t gifted by the musical gods.”

Ray rolls his eyes and scoops the green peppers he’s chopped into a metal bin. “Aren’t you supposed to be cutting olives?”

Frank wrinkles his nose. “I hate olives.”

“No one is asking you to eat them, you little shit,” Brian says, rounding the corner, “Hambone’s finishing up an order to go out--”

“Not it!” Ray shouts just as Frank puts his finger on his nose to say the same thing. 

“Fuck!” Frank exclaims, ignoring the way Brian is shaking his head. 

“I work with idiots, I swear,” Brain groans, then hands Frank the ticket. 

He scans the address then grins. 

“What?” Ray asks. 

“It’s the dinosaur house,” Frank says and Brian arches an eyebrow so Frank explains, “This guy who lives there has social anxiety or something. He uses those toy dinosaur gripper things--”

“Oh, I love those things!” Hambone says, walking up to them with a pizza box. 

Hambone is pretty much one of Frank’s favorite people in the entire world. For one, his name is Hambone, and for another, the guy just has a great way about moving through life. He’s not sure if he’s seen Hambone actually mad before. He’s gotten aggravated and annoyed, sure, he’s not a robot, but he doesn’t think Hambone has it in him to be really mad. If Frank thinks about it hard enough, the closest he’s seen Hambone angry was that one time they were in the pit and someone clonked Hambone in the nose with a beer bottle. And him yelling probably had more to do with the fact that Hambone had a broken nose and was in pain, but then the guy apologized profusely and Hambone just shrugged and bought him a new beer. 

Frank grins. “Yeah, anyway, he seems cool.”

Brain narrows his eyes. “Because he refuses to come outside?”

“He comes outside after I leave,” Frank says, “What’s that phobia...um, not claustrophobia--”

“That’s fear of small spaces, dumbass,” Hambone jokes. 

“No shit, I know that,” Frank bites. 

“Agoraphobia?” Ray tries, “That’s like...being outside or just in an environment that they think isn’t safe.”

Brain nods, “Yeah probably. But seeing as you all are pizza deliverers and not psychologists, I suggest you get back to chopping toppings instead of diagnosing our customers.”

Frank snorts and takes the pizza, grabbing an insulated carrier bag and stuffing it inside. “Ray, I’ll love you forever if you cut my olives.”

Ray’s face pinches a bit, “That sounds vaguely sexual.”

Hambone howls in laughter just as Frank holds up a middle finger and heads out the door.

He lights a cigarette as he gets in his car, reaching back into his backseat to find his binder of CDs. He needs to remember to grab that Danzing CD back from Ray the next time he goes over to jam. A lot of the kids he went to class with showed up with their iPods and while Frank can see the merit in having a huge collection of music at your fingertips without carrying around a binder of CDs...Frank’s just traditional he supposes. He likes to listen to an album all the way through, and he thinks just throwing a device on shuffle sorta takes away the experience of listening to music. Artists put together tracklistings with such care, there’s a reason why they chose to have one song play before another and messing that up fucks with the story. 

Hambone says he thinks too much. That he’s too smart for his own good and he should just get stoned more so he can handle all those thoughts swimming in his head. He always says it in a lighthearted manner, jokes and passes Frank a joint so that they’re laughing through it, but Frank knows what he means. Sometimes Frank just gets trapped in a vicious cycle in his own mind and can’t find himself out of it. 

Frank hasn’t been able to stop thinking about the dinosaur house since last time. And it’s sorta stupid, but he almost feels protective of the house. He doesn’t want some dickhead like Kyle to come by and make fun of the dinosaur head. Frank wonders if the guy inside the house has issues with other take out places. He knows that there’s some real assholes out there who just don’t understand anyone different than themselves. 

And he doesn’t really get it, but it’s not just the guy inside that he’s protective about. It really is the house too. Because Frank isn’t sure how to explain it, but he gets sad when he gets out of his car and sees that the mailbox is overstuffed. That the grass looks like it hasn’t been mowed all summer and there’s weeds tangling the flowerbeds that used to line the house. He can see glimpses of color trying to break through the tangled yellowing weeds, and he bets if someone just gave this place a bit of elbow grease, it’d shine brighter than a new penny. 

Then, of course, there’s the rotting stair that Frank reminds himself to step over as he goes up to the porch. He wonders if the guy who lives here has any help keeping up with the house, at least the outside where he’s too nervous to be for too long. 

Frank’s mind is still circling around something of a solution when he rings the doorbell, then moves out of the way so the dinosaur head doesn’t hit him in the shin this time. 

He grins a little when he hears the deadbolt slide then sees the little red dinosaur head pop out of the opening of the door. He stoops down and takes the money from the dinosaur’s mouth. “How’s your day going, man?” Frank asks, customer service and just genuinely good human nature taking over. 

There’s a pause, then, “Um, fine I guess.”

Frank grins a little at that because the guy sounds adorably shy, which is weird. Frank’s more into hardened Jersey girls, or guys. He likes the kind of person who sits in a chair and is relaxed enough to take up space. The kind of person who talks loudly so they can be heard over everyone else, someone who looks people in the eye when they talk to them. 

But Frank feels flutters in his chest and his cheeks hurt from the stretch of his smile. “I’m Frank by the way,” Frank tells him. 

Another pause, one that’s heavy of uncertainty and Frank wonders if he somehow crossed a line. But then he hears a quiet, “Thanks, Frank.”

And Frank’s pretty sure he doesn’t just mean the pizza. It doesn’t hit him until this moment that this guy probably doesn’t have any friends. Frank gets pretty down about where he is in life, but he’s alway gotten through whatever bullshit his head tells him because he’s got great friends to keep him on top of his game. 

“No problem,” Frank says, still hesitating when the dinosaur doesn’t just disappear back inside. 

“I’m Gerard,” he finally hears and Frank beams at the door like a fucking idiot. 

“Nice to meet you.”

Gerard snorts, and it almost sounds like it’s been surprised out of him. And Frank sort of loves that, how it’s not forced. He’s worked in customer service for so long he can hear the hollow imitation of a laughter, the ring of small talk and when someone is giving him a compliment to just blow smoke up his ass. It’s nice to talk to someone who is genuine. Who is unapologetically odd and knows what works for them. 

“I’m going to just leave this here,” Frank says, setting the pizza down when Gerard doesn’t say anything else. “I’ll see you next time.”

“Bye, Frank.”

“Bye, Gerard.”

Frank still hesitates at his car like he did the first time and watches as Gerard slowly makes his way out onto the porch when he deems it safe enough to venture out of his house. He’s dressed in pajamas again and his hair looks even crazier than before. But this time, Gerard looks directly at Frank’s car, and their eyes lock. 

Gerard pushes his hair out of his face and Frank can make out the delicate features of his face. His perfectly arched eyebrows, his little upturned nose, a crooked smile that stretches when Frank holds his gaze. Gerard tentatively holds up a hand, his fingers not quite outstretched in a wave.

Frank returns the smile and waves back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Three Hundred and Sixty One Shades of Blue](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25546960) is a really cute fic about Frank and Mikey living together. I love Frikey fics, but this one is just them being roommates and all the shenanigans of living together. It's short and sweet and UGH, I love it. Dapatty also has a great collection of podfics if you're into those!
> 
> So the other night, the discord bookclub was talking about ABO fics and it made me think of [Untamed](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18081023) which is AMAZING. I'd say it's a fairly unique spin on the ABO trope, and also Hangmans_Radio is just a great writer. 
> 
> Hope you all liked the chapter and recs! I'll be back with another chapter soonish. I'm currently only working on campus two days a week now, so I have PLENTY of time to write again.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An update, so soon?

So the shitty thing about moving back home after living on his own for four years was that so much had changed at home, it gave him a bit of whiplash. 

The first thing he noticed when he had gotten home was that half his bedroom had been turned into a pretty intense Tupperware operation. 

“Ma, what is all this shit?” Frank had asked, picking up a fluorescent pink plastic bowl.

Linda had shrugged, but then pulled at the end of her ponytail the way she always does when she’s nervous. “I needed the extra money and Suzie mentioned that her and Evan were able to go on that cruise because she started doing these Tupperware parties.

Frank narrowed his eyes at the mountain of neon plastic. “So how much have you sold?”

She wrapped the strands of her hair around her fingertips and smiled bashfully. “Well, I’m still trying to find my market.”

Right, so his mom turned into a stereotypical suburban mom after he left for college. He half expected to find a yoga ball in his room or a box of yarn for crafts. Tupperware is probably worse, much, much worse. 

The second thing that he’s had to get used to is that his mom’s been reading all these self help books and fucking parenting books. Which, the parenting books really don’t make any sense since Frank’s an adult now, but he doesn’t say anything smartass when she uses her fancy new words at the dinner table because she looks so damn proud of herself. Frank’s not heartless, he’s just annoyed. 

But the worst thing, the absolute fucking-sparta-kick-him-into-the-void worst thing that’s changed since he came home is that his mom is fucking dating again. And, he’s not stupid. He gets that his mom is her own person and she...ew, yeah, he’s not going there. But she hasn’t been with anyone since that Joey guy stole her car and hightailed it to Nevada, so he doesn’t blame her really. 

What makes it such a big deal is that his mom has the absolute worst taste in men. And that can be traced all the way back to his deadbeat dad. Frank’s not sure where the dude is, and he hasn’t asked since he was seven and still clung to the idea that a family meant a mom and dad at the dinner table with him every night. He’s definitely done some growing up since then. 

“What do you think?” Linda asks, standing in Frank’s doorway in a tight banana yellow dress, Her hair is about six foot high and she’s got enough eyeliner on to keep the makeup counter at Macy’s in business. 

“Um,” Frank says, then forces a smile, “Great. Where’s he taking you?”

“Some steak place,” she answers with a shrug, but Frank can tell she’s excited. He’d be happier for her if he knew that she wouldn’t come home and cry over a pint of ice cream, but there’s something ingrained in him. Something that’s genetic that makes him unable to hurt his mom’s feelings. 

So he says, “That’s great, Ma.”

She beams and comes over to where he’s sitting on the bed, her heels wobbling a bit on the carpet. She leans down and kisses the top of his head, and he’s glad she hadn’t put on her lipstick yet. “You’re a good kid, Frankie.”

Frank’s not sure why that makes his throat tight and eyes hot, but it does. Maybe because he’s been so down on himself lately. Or maybe it’s just something that a mother is able to do no matter how old you get. “Thanks.”

She starts walking away, but then she turns and taps her temple. “Oh, I forgot. Cheryl from the loan agency called again,” she says, her face falling a little. He knows that she’d help if she could, but she’s barely kept this roof over their heads since his dad split. And there’s times where he wonders if he shouldn’t have gone to school. If maybe he should have picked up a trade like some of the guys from school did, then he’d actually be able to help out instead of creating his own debt. But his mom had gotten so proud when he showed her the acceptance letter and he’d be the first in his family to graduate from a four year college, so it just seemed like the thing to do. Sometimes Frank wonders if his determination to prove something of himself is doing more harm than good. 

“Oh, right,” Frank says, “I’ll, um, yeah, I’ll send them a check Friday when I get paid.”

Linda hesitates and nods. “I would help if--”

“Ma, it’s fine. Really.”

She looks like she’s going to say something, but must think better of it because she just gives him a half assed smile and heads out. He waits until he hears her heels click across the kitchen linoleum and the door shut before he collapses back on his bed and lets out a shaky breath. He hates this feeling. This sour, spinning, sick-to-his-stomach feeling that makes him feel five years old again. He feels like that a lot of the time now. Sometimes he thinks he’s still a little kid in this technically adult body just playing pretend. Like if he keeps showing up to work and says things like “nice weather we’re having” people will believe he’s an adult. 

“Yeah,” he says, sitting up, “Fuck this.” He is not going to wallow in his room like some angsty sixteen-year old. 

So, he grabs his backpack and portable CD player, switching out the CD for  _ Hopeless Romantic _ before heading out the house himself. He’s sorta toeing the line of stupid by walking around Jersey on his own at night, but he’s also gotten this thick skin from growing up watching bodies getting pulled out of the local playground. He’d be stupid to say he’s not afraid of anything, but he’s not really scared of his hometown like he maybe should be.

When he walks into the diner Patrick’s got flour on the tip of his nose and his hair looks like it’s been caught in a blender. Pete’s balancing a tray on his shoulder that’s so stacked with plates, Frank’s worried it’s going to push Pete into the retro tiled floor. 

“Gotta move, kid,” he hears, and turns to see it’s Mikey holding a small tray of milkshakes, “Find a table, I’ll be with you in a sec.”

Frank wants to say  _ who are you calling kid? _ and  _ you fucking look dead on your feet _ , but he says neither and hurries to a table so he’s not in the way. True to his word, Mikey comes over after he’s dropped off the milkshakes. “You know what you want?” He asks, like he’s never worked a day in customer service before. 

It makes Frank want to laugh at him, or maybe give him a high five. Because he’s got this apathetic look on his face like he doesn’t give a shit if your puppy just died. His hair--fuck, how could Frank forget that hair--is hairsprayed up into some twisted emo version of a beehive. His glasses frames are thick rimmed but shaped into small squares that just barely outline his eyes, and he’s got that white denim jacket on again. Pretty ballsy to wear white when you’re working around food, Frank would know. The amount of shirts he’s had to pitch because he couldn’t get tomato sauce out is near tragic. 

“Coffee?” Frank asks, honestly worried that it’s the wrong answer. 

Mikey’s mouth twitches up like he would smile if he knew how. “Got a fresh pot brewing. Anything to eat?”

“Patrick making anything fancy?”

He snorts. “He’s always making something fancy. He’s got these barbeque cauliflower wraps right now.”

“Sounds good to me,” Frank replies. 

“Cool,” Mikey says, not writing any of this down, which is fine. It’s not like Frank gave a particularly challenging order, but something tells him that Mikey doesn’t write anything down and he wouldn’t care if the order came out wrong anyway. 

Mikey gives him a once over, and Frank wonders if he remembers him from his near death experience, but he doesn’t say anything. He just goes over to Pete and helps him unload plates before Pete loses his balance and topples over.

Pete’s the one who comes to fill up his coffee mug. “Hey, you’re back.”

“Yeah,” is all Frank says, because he’s always been a bit awkward about making friends. Starting conversations with new people isn’t the worst. It’s this stage that always gets him. The part where they’ve seen each other before, so the blanket of newness is gone, but they’re not close enough to be friends yet. 

Pete gives him a wink and hurries to refill other mugs around the diner. Frank pulls out his notebook and opens to a fresh page instead of trying to work on the poem that’s been giving him grief all week. 

When he told his mom he wanted to get a degree in poetry she wrinkled her nose and asked, “What the hell are you going to do with that?” And it’s not like he hadn’t thought about it. He remembers sitting in his room with the Rutgers brochure, staring at all the degrees offered. It seemed so daunting that he was just sitting in his room, picking out his future like he was ordering off a take out menu. He’d glanced over the business degrees, something that his mom would have been proud of. He could imagine her telling all the ladies at work that her son’s a businessman. He’d probably have an office in the city or something and wear douchey shoes like penny loafers. 

So he showed up to Rutgers undecided and that worried his mom, but luckily he was smart enough to pull something out of his ass about how seventy percent of college freshmen start off as undecided. And she looked appeased enough to help him unpack his dorm then smother him in hugs before driving back home. 

But then he was sitting in his English Comp class and he just really vibed with the professor. Frank always liked his English and Literature classes, but he never really thought much about them. He sorta thought of them the same way he thought about algebra. It was something to work his mind, to make him think out of the box and build his problem solving skills, but he’d never use it in real life. Like, honestly, how many conversations was he going to have about Holden’s red hat in  _ The Catcher in the Rye _ ? How many times was he going to find him at a coffeehouse or just sitting at the dinner table and say, “Well Holden’s hat is a symbol for his isolation and him buying the hat was supposed to show how he was trying to separate himself from society…”

Probably not very often. 

But then this professor, Mark--not even Dr.Fancy Pants or whatever, he just went by Mark--made him really think about words like they mattered. And fine, that could be pretty pretentious sounding, but that’s what happened. Because Frank’s like any other lower middle class kid where he went about his day, tumbling hundreds of words out of his mouth like it didn’t fucking matter. But Mark made him slow down and really appreciate everything about them. How they sounded. How they looked on a page. How they could change the meaning of a sentence. That they fucking mattered. 

And he mattered for wanting to manipulate them. 

Mark was the one who held Frank after class and held out a poem that Frank had turned in for an assignment. He’s the one that looked at Frank like he was more than just another punk kid out of Jersey and said, “You’ve got something to say.”

He knows it’s cliche, a literature teacher totally warping his mindview of himself (“O Captain, my Captain”, anyone?) but it’s what made him walk to the academic advisor’s office and enroll into the poetry program. Just because one person believed in him. And Frank hasn’t really sat down to think about the weight of that, of what it says about him. 

He’s just glad he’s not still undecided. 

“So,” Pete says, sliding into the booth opposite of Frank. He’s got a notebook of his own and a towering milkshake with enough sprinkles to give Frank’s dentist a heart attack, “There’s a poetry slam every Friday night at the coffeehouse Mikey works at.”

Frank frowns. “Doesn’t he work here?”

Pete smiles a little, but it’s hollow and pretty sad to be a smile, “Yeah. He’s got two jobs. Anyway”--he hurries like he’s embarrassed he’s spewing Mikey’s business-- “I go and it’s a lot of fun. I think you should come with us this week.”

So here’s the thing. Frank does  _ not _ do slam poetry. He doesn’t do spoken word or anything that involves him standing at a mic in front of a bunch of people. It’s not like he’s...it’s not really a stage fright thing. He’s been in plenty of bands to not be afraid of being on stage. But it’s different being the frontman. Even more different to be up there solo. There’s nothing to distract people from what he’s saying. 

“Um, I don’t--”

“You don’t have to participate,” Pete says, “I don’t all the time. But it’s a good scene to get into if that’s your thing.”

And maybe it’s Pete’s expression, the friendly smile that’s still a little haunted because he’s worried about his friend. Or it’s Mikey standing in front of a table with a bored expression as a customer yells at him for putting pickles on his burger. Maybe it’s Patrick cursing in the kitchen after dropping something that sounded like metal. Maybe it’s thinking about Mark telling him he has something to say or even the small little wave he got from Gerard. 

But he just wants to belong somewhere. So he says, “Yeah, ok.”

*

The next time Frank shows up at the dinosaur house, he doesn’t have a pizza to deliver. It’s his day off and he’s not really sure why he’s here--well, that  _ might _ be a lie. 

“Do you know anything about carpentry?” Frank had asked Hambone Sunday night when they were sitting on Hambone’s couch with a bowl of Chex Mix and a case of cheap gas station beer. 

Hambone frowned and paused their game of  _ Sypro the Dragon.  _ “Um, Frankie, I gotta ask you... do I look like someone who knows anything about carpentry?”

Frank had stared at him and fine, maybe it was the three beers he had already drank, but he shrugged. “I don’t know. You’ve got big arms.”

Which made Hambone laugh so hard he started choking on a bagel chip and Frank had to pound on his back so the chip would dislodge from his throat and land on the soda sticky coffee table. “Fuck,” he rasped, then started giggling again. 

So Frank took matters into his own hands. 

What that really meant was he made puppy dog eyes at Brian until he agreed to come to the hardware with him. It’s not like Frank had any indication that Brian knew anything about fixing steps, but Brian just knew how to get shit done. 

Brian had spent the afternoon Googling in his office and came prepared with a notebook piece of paper that had inked numbers and a drawing that Frank thought looked more like geometry homework. 

“Alright, we need a hammer and chisel,” Brian said. 

Frank didn’t know why they needed archaeology tools to fix a step, but he didn’t want to piss Brian off by doubting his intelligence, he fucking hated that, so Frank just shrugged and followed Brian down the aisles until they got everything on his list. And Frank’s pretty proud that he only pretended to shoot aliens with a nail gun  _ once _ . 

So here he is, on his day off with Brian, who looks a little annoyed to also be spending his day off looking at a rotting step. “This isn’t your house.”

“No, it’s Gerard’s,” Frank says, grabbing the plank of wood out of the back of Brian’s car.

“And who is Gerard?” Brian asks, grabbing the bag of tools they bought. 

“He’s…”

“Is this the dinosaur dude?”

Frank doesn’t say anything and Brian groans, “Does he know we’re here or are you being creepy?”

He knows it’s weird, ok? And he doesn’t know why this strange guy who lives in his Batman pajamas and doesn’t own a hairbrush has been plaguing Frank’s every thought. It’s gotten so bad that he’s starting to see Gerard show up in his poems, and that’s just a little too emo preteen for him and he’s got to do something about it. 

Maybe it’s because Frank grew up with a single mom who needed him to step up at a young age. Maybe it’s because he saw this fucked up documentary about the meat industry when he was a kid or the fact that he got picked on a lot when he was in school. But whatever the reason, Frank just can’t  _ not _ help someone. So whenever he drove by the dinosaur house and saw the hidden rose bushes, the overstuffed mailbox, and the fucking rotting stairs, Frank had to do something about it. 

“I just want to help,” Frank says when Brian snaps his fingers in front of Frank’s face after he hadn’t answered him. 

Brian sighs, but it’s one of those  _ oh, Frankie _ sighs so Frank smiles at him and lets Brian get to work on the stairs while Frank pulls on his mom’s gardening gloves and starts weeding the rose garden. 

Frank had been really young when his dad left. And he honestly shouldn’t remember him, but sometimes Frank will get a flashback. Just a glimpse of an image of his dad’s hands on a fretboard, an echo of a song spinning round and round on an old turntable, a lingering smell of cigar smoke with hints of cherries. But those don’t put the ache in Frank’s heart like the image of stacks of dishes in the sink or the mountain of laundry that just sat by the washer. His mom never let them go hungry and she never got their power turned off because of a late payment. But she let things slip, she was only one person after all. 

That’s probably what’s happening with Gerard. He’s got something going on that’s making everything harder for him. He’s trying his best to get through the day, but the weeds are growing through the cracks and the rotting step has just slipped his mind. He just needs a little help to get by. 

Frank beams at the bright yellows and reds and pinks that speckle the front of the house. Now that he can actually see the rose bushes, the house looks like it’s stretching and trying to get the blood moving again. Like it’s coming back to life.

And he knows that the roses will go dormant for the winter soon, so maybe Frank should get Gerard some mums so he doesn’t forget the colors. He knows there’s that garden nursery near his house that his mom always goes to for the bulbs she always plants near their mailbox. 

“Um…”

Frank turns around and sees Mikey standing next to Brian with a confused look on his face. He’s got one earbud out and when his eyes focus on Frank he frowns. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No Gerard in this one, but he won’t be missing the action for long. Thank you so much for all the love on the previous chapter. You all left the sweetest comments, I’m so grateful <3
> 
> [This Town Is Wrong](https://archiveofourown.org/works/312280) is one of those fanfics that really get you in your feelings. I read this when I was twenty-two and drinking way too much and just feeling stuck, much like Frank and Gerard in this fic. I remember thinking, “wow, someone fucking gets it”. Anyway, if you haven’t read this yet then you really should. (Also important to note that while Frank is in high school in this fic, he’s eighteen.)
> 
> You’ll probably see me rec a lot of fics by inlovewithnight, but I just love their fics so fucking much. [Say It Over Music And Your Feet Won’t Stumble](https://archiveofourown.org/works/185304) is a Petekey fic that really illustrates a love that’s not explosive. It’s realistic and sorta messy and confusing, but ultimately shows that beauty can be found in the most mundane things like German Literature and after sex Ginger Ale. Also as a grad student, I appreciate this fic SO FUCKING MUCH.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whether you're back for another chapter or this is your first time here, thank you so much <3

“There’s a fucking dip in the lane,” Frank grumbles, lighting another cigarette and looking at the stupid animation on the tv above their lane that’s mocking him for missing the last of his pins. 

Ray grins and claps him on the shoulder. “Just like the ball you had last time had a chip in it?”

“It did!” Frank exclaims as Hambone shakes his head and hands him a beer before going up to grab his own bowling ball. 

Frank doesn’t even know how they got into bowling. Probably because whenever they’re too broke to drive into the city for a show, they can either go play bingo at the church near his old high school or come here to sweet talk old Mrs. Harrison into letting them bowl for free. It always works because they send Ray, who is a fucking angel on his own, but it helps that he always ate Mrs. Harrisons nasty oatmeal cookies at the various church functions their parents make them attend. 

“I feel real dirty,” Ray would always say after Mrs. Harrison patted him on the cheek and told him he was ‘a good kid’ before handing over bowling shoes for the guys and opening the lane. 

And Frank is shit at bowling, but Ray still bowls like a kid where he spreads his legs and tosses the ball through them. Hambone is actually pretty good at the beginning of their game, but by the last frames, he's a few beers deep and starts trying to get too fancy. 

Either way, it’s the perfect way to take his mind off this afternoon. He can still feel Mikey’s eyes on him, questioning and eyeing him up like he was a threat to Gerard. And that was the worst bit, Gerard didn’t come out to say anything. Which makes sense, but he just felt really fucking stupid and Brian had squeezed his shoulder and suggested they get out of there. 

Brian had been fucking amazing. He just pushed Frank towards the car, then prattled on about how their cheese supplier has been getting cocky with the prices and Brian is  _ this _ fucking close to getting some cows and making his own goddamn cheese. Frank didn’t offer much of an opinion since the thought of cheese alone makes his stomach turn, but he appreciated the distraction. 

And when he got home, his mom still wasn’t home from work so he was able to sulk in peace. Except Brian must have told Ray or Hambone what the fuck had happened, because they showed up at his house and drug him to the bowling alley. 

Frank remembers coming here all the time when he was a kid. It was sorta the only place kids could have their birthday parties if they weren’t going to do them in their house. Frank remembers spending way too many quarters in the arcade just so he could get enough tickets to get some cheap bouncy ball or one of those sticky aliens that he would fling at his mom’s windshield. And they have really good slushies that turn his mouth a sour raspberry blue, which he and Ray usually dump airplane shots of vodka in nowadays. 

It’s one of those places that Frank never thought he’d grow fond of, but it hits him sometimes. And maybe it’s one of those things where absence makes the heart grow fonder, because he never thought about this place when he was a teenager. But now in his twenties, the smell of the carpet cleaner Mrs. Harrison uses makes his heart swell and the taste of soggy fried onion rings makes him feel like he’s having a home cooked meal. 

Hambone yells when he gets another strike, completing his turkey, and swoops down to pick Frank up and throw him over his shoulder like they’re in one of those soccer photos where someone just scored the winning goal. Frank’s stomach spins from too much carbonated beer and his mouth feels stretched in an easy smile. 

“Hey, put me down!” Frank yelps, and gets thrown back into the too hard chairs by their lane. He dropped his cigarette somewhere, and he searches the patterned floor because Mrs. Harrison will have his fucking balls if he burns a hole in the carpet. 

“So, what’s going on with that dinosaur guy?” Ray asks, bending over to retrieve Frank’s cigarette and handing it to him. 

Frank takes a drag and shrugs. “I don’t know, but his brother thinks I’m a creep now.”

Hambone takes a swig of his beer and shrugs. “Brian said he didn’t seem too mad, just confused.”

Frank purses his lips. Mikey looked embarrassed when he realized that Frank and Brian were fixing the step and clearing out the garden, like he hadn’t even known that was something he needed to do. He remembers Pete telling him that Mikey was working two jobs, and Frank swears he can recall Mikey saying something about still being in school. That seems like way too fucking much for one person. 

“You probably embarrassed him,” Ray echoes his thoughts, picking up an onion ring and munching on it contemplatively, “So the dinosaur--”

“--Gerard,” Frank supplies.

“Right, Gerard. So Gerard doesn’t come outside?” Ray asks, “That means he doesn’t work.”

“Probably not,” Hambone chimes in. 

“So Mikey is...where are their parents?” Ray asks, eyebrows furrowing. And it’s such a kid thing to ask, but Frank understands. He forgets he’s an adult all the time and that he’s not supposed to be relying on his mom anymore. There’s still moments where his knee jerk reaction is to ask his mom for help, like whenever he has to fill out tax forms or when he’s sick and he just wants his mom to make him veggie barley soup. He freaks out sometimes when he realizes that one day he’s going to be alone, and he’s going to have to be the one to fuck up his tax forms and he’s going to have to drive himself to the doctor when he’s sick. 

“I don’t know,” Frank says, shrugging, “I haven’t really talked to either brother or anything. I didn’t even know Mikey was--”

“He works at that diner you’re always writing in?” Hambone asks. 

Frank nods and stumps out his cigarette butt into the ashtray on the table. “Yeah, I only talked to--”

“And you almost ran him over,” Ray points out, laughing a little. 

Frank rolls his eyes when Hambone joins in and says, “No wonder he doesn’t like you.”

“Yeah, not a great first impression to make on your future boyfriend’s brother,” Ray agrees. 

Frank startles a bit at that. “I didn’t say anything about dating the guy.”

Hambone snorts and steals one of Ray’s onion rings. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Frank demands, grabbing another beer from the bucket sitting on the table. He twists off the top aggressively and tosses the cap at Hambone, “What?”

Ray shrugs. “You always do this.”

Well that’s not helpful. And what the fuck does Ray mean by  _ always _ ? Frank hasn’t really dated anyone since coming home. He’s had hookups, sure, and a few dates here and there that he’d bring around the guys--but nothing that would constitute as  _ dating _ . 

“Do what?” Frank stresses. 

“You get obsessive,” Hambone says, and Frank narrows his eyes at Ray nodding along like this is just fucking common knowledge. 

And Frank’s about to protest, but Ray cuts him off, “Remember Ellie?”

Frank’s face pinches up at that. Ok, Ellie was different. He just really has a thing for borderline trashy Jersey girls who keep their cigarettes in their bras and could knock him out in one punch. And sure, maybe he was weird and kept showing up to all her gigs even though Ray told him he was being creepy. And yeah, ok, he  _ did _ offer to run her band’s merch both for free more than one time, or five. 

Hambone laughs, “Or Andrew...wait, no, Alex?”

“Andy,” Frank drawls, wrinkling his nose and he’s pretty sure his cheeks are getting pink from more than the beer at this point. Because Andy had been this cool drummer who couch surfed and made a mean eggplant parmesan. Frank had spent way too much of what little money he  _ didn’t fucking have _ getting Andy’s car out of the impound yard and he was close to helping him pay for his DUI court fees, but Ray put his foot down at that one. 

“I don’t have a savior complex or anything,” Frank mumbles, taking a drink of his beer. 

Hambone grins at him. “You said it, not us.”

“You implied.”

“If it looks like a duck,” Ray shrugs, leaning back in his chair and looking up at the screen about their lane. 

“Look,” Hambone says, “We’re just saying to, you know, maybe take it down a notch this time.”

Frank’s still trying to process what his friends are trying to tell him when Ray says, “Let’s play another game,” before he gets the chance to say anything else.

*

Frank is about five pepperoncinis away from winning twenty bucks and a case of beer when Brian comes over and arches his eyebrow. 

“Yeah, I don’t want to know,” he says after a moment, then sighs, “Gerard put in another order. Are you going to be able to go or are you going to be weird about it?”

“Un fuuhn,” Frank says with his mouth full of pepperchinis. 

Brian purses his lips like he’s seriously considering giving the job to Ray, but Ray says, “It’ll be fine, Brian, you worry too much.”

Brian still hesitates, but then says, “Pizza’s up in seven minutes,” before turning on his heel and walking back towards the office. 

Frank makes grabby hands at Ray who laughs and hands him another pepper. Frank shoves the fifteen he already has in his mouth over with his tongue and slots the new one next to them, ignoring the way he’s drooling down his shirt. 

Seven minutes later, he’s got twenty bucks in his back pocket with a pizza box in his hand and Ray asking him what kind of beer he wants. It’s a pretty fucking good Thursday afternoon, and Frank’s going to hold onto the good mood he’s in all the way to Gerard’s house and  _ not _ think about how he embarrassed the shit out of himself last time. 

When Frank pulls up to the house, he takes a few extra drags off his cigarette before throwing it out the window and shutting off his car. When he rings the doorbell, he jumps at how quickly the dinosaur head pops out with money in its mouth. “Frank?”

Frank swallows, a bit unsure, before sitting down in front of the slot in the door and crossing his legs. “Hey,” he says, setting the pizza in his lap. 

Gerard seems a bit unsure himself, but Frank hears him on the other side of the door, shifting and settling into whatever position he’s probably sitting in. 

“I, uh,” Frank starts, “I think I pissed off your brother.”

Gerard snorts softly, fond, and it tugs at Frank’s heart just a little. He was always a bit bummed out that he never had any siblings growing up. “Nah, Mikey’s just a bit overprotective.”

Frank wants to ask what he’s protecting Gerard from, but he’s not really sure how to bring it up without sounding like an asshole. Because, really, he doesn’t even know this guy. He’s delivered pizza here twice--three times if he counts this time--so this is all really stupid and maybe Ray and Hambone were right. No, of course they were right. But it’s still fucking annoying. 

“He…” Gerard starts, then he sighs and Frank thinks his shoulders must hunch over since the dinosaur dips a bit lower. “Things are, they um, I don’t know, things just are kind of hard right now.”

Frank nods, because even if he doesn’t understand the full extent of what Gerard means, he can agree that things are fucking hard. But then he remembers that Gerard can’t see him nod, so he says, “Yeah, I get that.”

“Do you?”

Frank plays with the receipt that’s stapled to the pizza box and shrugs, “Well yeah. Doesn’t everyone?”

Gerard makes a noise, sorta sounding like a hum. “I guess.”

He knows that there’s something more there. Frank knows that not everyone is hesitant about leaving their home, but he doesn’t want to make Gerard feel weird about it. And, again, it’s not his business but he can’t help but  _ want  _ it to be his business. He wants to know this guy who has a dinosaur gripper hanging out the door, who is loved so much by his brother that he’ll work himself to the ground, who Frank can make laugh without meaning to. 

“Were you listening to the pumpkins?” Gerard asks after a moment. 

It takes a second for his question to catch up to Frank’s brain before he grins and says, “Hey, yeah, I was,” then, “Shit, was that too loud?”

Gerard laughs, nasally and small, “Nah, you’re fine. I get it. I used to listen to  _ Siamese Dream _ on repeat when I was in high school.”

“I lost my copy a while back,” Frank says, then, “Where’d you go to school?”

“Uh, Belleville High School,” Gerard answers, his voice a little weak like he’s shy all of a sudden. And Frank wonders if it’s because high school was shitty for Gerard, if he’s self-conscious about that time and he doesn’t want Frank to have recognized him or something. 

“I went to Queen of Peace,” Frank says, and he almost can hear the relief from Gerard. It makes him smile and he says, “High school’s shitty for everyone.”

“Yeah, I mean,” Gerard starts, “I had a few friends, but Mikey and I were pretty much hermits. I played a lot of DnD.”

Frank snorts without meaning to and hopes he didn’t just embarrass him, so he says, “I was this punk kid--”

“You’re not still some punk kid?” Gerard teases, and it just makes Frank feel warm. Not in an embarrassed way, but in a happy way that comes with the acknowledgement that he’s gotten Gerard to be comfortable enough to tease him. 

“Yeah, yeah,” Frank snorts, “You saw me for like two seconds.”

There’s a pause and Frank wonders if he overstepped again. Gerard doesn’t say anything, so Frank bites back a sigh, then says, “Um, your pizza is probably going to get cold.”

“Oh, right,” Gerard says. 

Frank takes the bills out of the dinosaur’s mouth and starts to stand up. 

“Wait!”

Frank hesitates and arches an eyebrow, “yeah?”

“I...uh, give me just a minute,” Gerard says, and then the dinosaur’s head disappears back through the flap and he hears Gerard moving away from the door. Frank bites his lip and starts messing with the receipt again before thinking,  _ you dumbass _ , and pulling out a pen from his pocket. 

He finishes scribbling his phone number on the receipt just as the dinosaur’s head pokes back out. This time it’s got a CD jewel case in it’s mouth and upon inspection, Frank sees that it’s  _ Siamese Dream _ . 

“Oh,” Frank says, taking the CD. 

“Well, you said you lost your copy,” Gerard says, sounding bashful again, “You, um, you can borrow it if you want.”

“Yeah,” Frank says, grinning like an idiot and he’s really glad there’s a door between him and Gerard. “Thanks, this is great.”

“See you later?” Gerard asks softly. 

“Yeah,” Frank says, still grinning more than that time he got Sadie Michaels to dance with him at homecoming, “I think I’ll be around.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [I’ve Barely Been Gone](https://archiveofourown.org/works/280986) is a really cute fic that blends two of my favorites, coffee shop AU and sick fic. Gerard is just so fucking precious in this one. [Chieana](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chieana/pseuds/Chieana) and I were talking about the fact that not a lot of Teen and General Audience fics get love, so I want to try and incorporate more of those in these recs. 
> 
> [Elevators and Half Price Sales](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27015997/chapters/65951728) is petekey fic that I’ve been loving lately. It’s a WIP and I eagerly wait for each update (the writer has been pretty great about updating weekly). Mikey works at Hot Topic and Pete works at Claire’s and it’s just so fucking cute but has enough angst to really hit me in the feels. 
> 
> [Getaway Cabin](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26881984) is another Teen rated frerard that I love to bits. It’s a sweet fic that follows an older Frank and Gerard and it’s that quiet, sweet domestic fic that everyone needs in their life. I reread this fic so much, it’s borderline ridiculous.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still in shock over the Blonde Frank selfie, but I managed to pull a chapter together.

Frank may or may not have checked his phone off and on all night, hoping that Gerard would call him. He tried to keep himself busy by sorting through the Tupperware that’s still stacked in Frank’s room by color and then usage because, really, his mom is so unorganized. It’s no wonder why she hasn’t sold anything. How could she when she can’t find anything?

It’s really just a way to keep himself busy this weekend, he tells himself as he finds the order forms shoved in the box that has the lime green salad bowls. And it’s not like he’s practicing for his mediocre suburban life when he lights a cigarette and starts trying to write up a somewhat legible flyer for a Tupperware party. 

He’s trying to figure out if the cherries he just drew look too much like lumpy testicles when his phone rings. His cigarette drops from his mouth as he lunges for the phone and he answers with a frantic, “Hello?” And then he realizes that his cigarette fell onto his flyer and is burning a hole through it, probably about to start a fire on his bedroom floor. “Fuck!”

He picks up the cigarette, sticks it back in his mouth, and after making sure he isn’t accidentally committing arson, tries again, “Hello?”

“Um…” he hears Gerard say unsure, then, “Frank?”

Frank beams even though he just made an ass of himself. “Yeah, hey, sorry. I dropped my cigarette on this flyer I was trying to make for my mom’s Tupperware party.”

Gerard giggles a little at that, and it sounds all crackly over the phone. “Tupperware party?”

“Um, yeah,” Frank says, frowning a bit because he probably sounds really fucking lame, “Yeah, it’s this thing where you invite people over and show off Tupperware that they can buy and wow, this is making me sound like a fucking douche isn’t it?”

More giggles, and Frank is pretty content in keeping up the Tupperware talk if he’s going to be rewarded with giggles. “Nah, it’s sweet. So was the flyer salvageable?”

“Uh,” Frank says, looking down at the flyer that honestly looked like shit way before the burn mark got there. “I honestly think it looks better with the cigarette burn? I’m not much of a drawer.”

Gerard hums like he’s debating, then, “I could draw something for you.”

Frank sits back on his bed and stares up at the glow in the dark stars that are still stuck on his ceiling from when he was seven. “Yeah?” He asks. 

“Um, sure. I’m not really sure what a Tupperware party flyer entails but I’m sure I can come up with something.”

“Well, it just needs to say October twenty-first at seven.” Frank says, “Um, PM of course. My mom would be pissed if people showed up at seven in the morning for Tupperware.”

More giggles. “Does your mom know she’s hosting this party?”

“Well…” Frank trails off because, no, she doesn’t, “She just needs a little nudge.”

Gerard hums again. “Yeah.”

Frank bites his lip so he doesn’t say something else stupid. Because he can totally see how Gerard might have taken that. Frank hasn’t really sat and thought much about why Gerard doesn’t leave his house. Honestly, it sorta makes sense to Frank because the world is fucking scary out there. But he’s not sure if he’s more scared of the outside or what’s in his head. So maybe he’s making peace with that by spending a bit of time in both. Maybe they cancel each other out or something.

“So you draw?” Frank asks carefully, thinking that must be an ok topic to venture into. 

Though he’s not sure when there’s another pause. But then Gerard says, “Yeah, I do. I...I, it, um, used to be my job actually.”

“Yeah? What’d you do?”

“I worked for this independent imprint,” Gerard says. 

“Imprint?” Frank asks, feeling his eyebrows twist in confusion. 

“Oh, um, for comics. Sorry, it’s--”

“No way! That’s so cool!” Frank shouts, and he can hear Gerard stutter a bit like he startled him. Maybe Frank should tone it down a bit, but Gerard is literally living out Frank’s dream. Finding a job in something creative, in something that you  _ want _ to do instead of settling for some office job is exactly what Frank’s been looking for. He just didn’t really know if it existed. It seemed as unattainable as being a rockstar. 

“Yeah,” Gerard says softly, then quietly, “It was.”

Oh. “You can’t draw comics from home?” Frank asks, throwing his arm over his eyes like it could hide him from this increasingly awkward conversation. Why can’t he be normal and just talk about the weather or something appropriate?

“Um,” Gerard starts, then sighs. 

“You know,” Frank says, trying to fix the shitshow he’s just created, “I’ve been listening to  _ Siamese Dream _ on repeat all night.”

“Yeah?” Gerard asks, the smile and relief evident in his voice. 

*

“I think that girl who does the interpretive dance is coming tonight,” Pete says, leaning over to steal one of Patrick’s chocolate chips off his muffin. 

Patrick bats his hand away. “I told you to get one for yourself.”

“Yours taste better,” Pete grins innocently. 

“I thought slam poetry was for, you know, poetry,” Frank says, lighting a cigarette. 

Patrick glares at him and Pete takes the cigarette out of Frank’s mouth and puts it out on the corner of his plate, “Patrick has asthma.”

“Oh, shit, “ Frank says, “Sorry, man.”

Pete leans in to kiss Patrick’s cheek before getting up and announcing that he’s getting a muffin for himself. Patrick rolls his eyes and tells Frank, “You should really quit, it’s such a bad habit.”

Frank smiles internally because Ray’s already on his case about his smoking habit, so it feels familiar coming from Patrick. He used to be slightly intimidated by Patrick before he realized that his temper was really just passion and love overflowing to the point that Patrick didn’t know what to do with it. Frank figured this out because most of Patrick’s temper is directed at Pete, and Frank’s got fucking eyes and can see that the two of them love each other probably more than anyone on the planet. 

“It’s not romantic,” Pete had told him when the diner was slow and Pete had time to eat a sandwich with Frank. “But I love the guy, you know?”   


Frank did know, objectively anyway. His friends were great. He would gladly take a bullet for Ray or Hambone any day of the week. Even Brian if he hadn’t made him cut olives that day. But, he’s not so sure he’s felt the type of love that Pete has for Patrick and vice versa. Probably because he’s never let anyone in that much to feel that connection. He’s had plenty of stoner talks with Hambone, but that was all shallow important stuff. Things like if he thought the president was a lizard person or if our brains look like the inside of a mushroom. They never talked about the fact that Frank’s never made peace with the fact that he’s grown up catholic but doesn’t believe in God or the fact that he’s not sure if he’s a shitty person. And Ray’s had heart to heart conversations with him about school and that Frank should do whatever makes him happy, but he doesn’t know that Frank is legitimately afraid that no one is going to read a single word of his poems and he’s going to be forgotten, that sometimes his need to leave a mark on this world drives him into this manic state where he’s not even sure he’s a person anymore. 

He doesn’t have conversations with his friends that show them how fucking unhinged he can get. He doesn’t let them see the dirty parts of his heart that would make or break their relationship. 

Pete and Patrick aren’t like that. Frank can see it. He  _ knows _ that they’ve shared the ugly stuff with each other from the haunted look that Patrick will get on his face every now and then when Pete has his back turned. Or from the way that Pete will step in front of Patrick like he’s a shield whenever some asshole is trying to complain at the counter. There’s a trust there, an understanding. And a love. 

“It’s good you made it out,” Patrick says, pinching off a bit of his muffin and tossing it in his mouth, “Pete wasn’t sure you’d come.”

Frank had wanted to back out. Mostly because he still wasn’t sure if he technically was Pete and Patrick’s friend, but he assumes that going out with them would get him there. He’s not really sure when he got so unsteady with his own relationships. It’s like he moved back home and suddenly was this shy kid again. It’s just that, well, maybe it’s really fucking with Frank to be back home living in this limbo state when he thought he’d be in some artsy apartment in the city and going to things like this where he actually had the balls to read what he’s written. 

“Yeah,” Frank says, looking up to where Pete is standing in front of Mikey. That was another reason why Frank wanted to back out. He really wasn’t sure if he wanted to see Mikey again after embarrassing the fuck out of himself at the Way house. But surely Gerard explained to Mikey that Frank wasn’t a creep and they were maybe-sorta-friends?

He doesn’t know. Everytime Mikey looks in his direction, it looks like he’s just looking right through him, so it’s hard to tell. But that could just be how Mikey is. It seems like the only person that really can get a smile out of him is Pete. 

“So,” Frank says, nodding over to Mikey and Pete, “Are they together or something?”

Patrick snorts. “Who knows.”

Pete leans over the counter where Mikey is filling a mug with steamed milk and kisses his cheek before coming back over to their table. 

“You forgot your muffin,” Frank points out. 

Pete winks. “Got something sweeter.”

Patrick rolls his eyes but before he can really say anything, there’s a bit of feedback pouring out of the speakers and someone says, “Alright, I hope you’re properly caffeinated because we’re ready to start.”

“Oh god,” Patrick groans, “You really need to stop dressing Gabe.”

Gabe, Frank assumes, is the tall guy standing on top of a table with a fluorescent pink microphone that would rival some of the Tupperware sitting in Frank’s room. He’s got on a sequined blazer with a yellow shirt underneath, purple skinny jeans, and bright white high tops. He really is a bit of an eye sore, but Pete rolls his eyes and tugs down Patrick’s trucker hat so it covers his eyes. 

“Ah, much better,” Patrick grins and Pete elbows him playfully. 

“My name is Gabe,” Gabe purrs, “But you already knew that, so let’s just get this show on the road so I can still make my date.”

Patrick scoffs like he’s unimpressed, but Frank sees a ghost of a smile. 

“First up, we’ve got a Mr. Ryan Ross,” Gabe says, stepping down from the table. There’s a hum of an applause, and Frank furrows his brows because he always thought that you were supposed to snap at these things. But maybe that was just on television. And the longer that Frank sits there, the more he realizes that this isn’t really a poetry slam, it’s more of a get-on-stage-and-do-your-thing sort of show.

There is a girl who does an interpretive dance while this guy whistles the tune to the theme song of Scooby-Doo, and that’s pretty entertaining. Especially when Patrick tries to keep a straight face and just turns redder and redder as he tries to stifle his laughter. And Mikey comes out at some point to join them. Pete puts an arm around Mikey’s narrow waist and pulls him onto his lap. Mikey doesn’t say anything to Frank, just steals the rest of Patrick’s muffin as they watch this Spencer kid make a racket on some makeshift drums. 

When it’s Pete’s turn, Mikey gets up so that Pete can go up to the table everyone has been using as a stage. Pete’s a pretty small guy, but he looks even smaller up on that table. Frank thought that he’d seem bigger, more commanding, but it almost feels like he’s got more power in being vulnerable. 

“So this is called puppy love versus teaching old dogs new tricks,” Pete starts, biting his lip and looking anywhere but at their table. “We are bricks on gas pedals. We are the ink on forged checks. I will make you mine and then forget you. My head is too crowded for the company. Can we go back to how it was..” 

Frank feels stuck in Pete’s words, like each word is a talon sinking in Frank’s skin and holding him down. He feels like he can’t move, can’t look anywhere but at Pete’s small frame speaking these big ideas. These emotions that Frank didn’t even realize he had, that he wasn’t aware he needed to address, and maybe because they weren’t really his, but Pete made him feel like he needed to care. 

And it makes him think about Mark and his class. How he’d tried to tell Frank that words still mattered even if they weren’t shared, but that he had a responsibility with the ones he did share. That everything he wrote and let someone read, the things he said and let fill someone’s ears, needed to be chosen carefully because he was giving a gift or a curse. And he’s not sure what Pete is giving the crowd with words like “I want you in my 12am veins” or “I rather lay my head on a curb somewhere.”

When Pete’s done, he jumps down from the table and it takes a bit for the claps to come, but they do even if they’re unsteady. 

When Pete gets to their table, he nudges Frank and asks, “Wanna go finish that cigarette?”’

Frank nods and follows Pete outside where he leans back against the coffeehouse and lets out a long exhale. Frank doesn’t push, just pulls out a cigarette and lights up. He offers one to Pete, but he shakes his head and grins. “Patrick would kick my ass.”

It takes Frank almost half his cigarette before Pete says, “It’s scary everytime I get up there.”

“Then why do you do it?” Frank asks. 

Pete shrugs. “Because I’m narcissistic and I like to hear my own voice? I mean, aren’t artists all a little like that?”

Frank snorts because he knows that’s not really Pete’s answer, but he’s also not wrong. “I guess,” he says, but then he thinks of Gerard who won’t get his work out there anymore. Who’s too scared to step outside and be seen. “I don’t know.”

Pete looks down at his shoes and says, “I think saying the things that are in my head make it not so scary.”

Frank can get behind that. “Yeah, it gives it shape.”

Pete looks up, his eyes bright. “Exactly.”

Frank knows he’s pushing his luck, but it’s Pete so he’s pretty sure he’d tell him to back off if it’s an issue. “They’re kinda shaped like Mikey.”

Pete’s eyebrow raises, then he looks away again and swallows thickly. “It’s just fun, nothing really serious.”

Pete really doesn’t look like he’s having fun, but Frank doesn’t say that. 

Not this time.

*

“Oh, Romeo you’re boyfriend rang,” Hambone sing-songs. 

Frank, unfucking believably, giggles like a girl then covers his mouth when he sees the amused expression Ray shoots his way. “Whatever,” Frank says, trying to shrug his shoulders like he doesn’t care, but Ray throws a sausage at him and Frank scowls. “Vegan, motherfucker, come on!”

“Yes, and I’m sure the oreos you had for lunch were vegan,” Ray snorts, sprinkling tomatoes on the pizza he’s making. 

“Oreos are totally vegan,” Frank protests. 

Hambone sits up on the counter and wrinkles his nose. “How is something that’s supposed to have a cream filling vegan?”

“Brian is going to rip you a new one if he sees you sitting on the counter,” Ray warns. 

“The filling is actually just oil and sugar,” Frank says. 

“I thought vegan food was supposed to be healthy,” Hambone says. 

“Not if Frank’s eating it,” Ray points out. 

“Hey!”

It’s almost jarring to be back at work after being with Pete and Patrick all last night. Mikey had stayed behind at the coffeehouse to finish up his shift and then get home to Gerard, but Pete insisted that Frank come back to his and Patrick’s place. Which really was just coming to hang out with Pete some more because apparently the hot date Gabe was so keen to make was with Patrick.

It should have been awkward to be in someone else’s house this late at night, Frank would have thought Pete was going to try and make a move on him if he didn’t already have a pretty good idea of who Pete was. Instead Pete pulled out his N64 and they played Golden Eye while Pete told him stories about his and Patrick’s home in Chicago. 

Pete and Patrick met when Patrick was still in high school and wanting to be in a band. Pete had been a pretty influential person in the Chicago music scene, so it was inevitable that they would come together. “You should have seen how he dressed back then,” Pete joked, then plunged into the saga of how they almost made it as a band, but nothing ever clicked the way it needed to. And then Pete’s demons caught up with him and Patrick thought it would be best to get out of town for a bit. 

Frank thinks it’s odd that he keeps attracting these people who had their dreams in their grasp just to watch it slip from their fingers. It should scare him, being around all these people who didn’t accomplish the goals they set out for themselves. It should make Frank doubt himself, because if someone as good as Ray couldn’t make it, how the fuck did Frank think  _ he _ would. But it’s oddly comforting, like he’s in this club of broken people who don’t have any room to judge his own failures. 

“Frank?”

Frank blinks a few times before he focuses on Hambone who’s standing in front of him with Gerard’s pizza. “Daydream much?” He teases.

Frank rolls his eyes and takes the pizza. “Yeah, whatever.”

“So should we just clock out for you since--”

“Oh, shut up,” Frank grumbles.

“Yeah, leave him alone,” Ray teases, “He’s in his feelings.”

“Jesus Fuck, I hate you guys,” Frank says, getting his shit together so he can leave. They’re making kissing faces at him when he does manage to get out of there.

When Frank gets to Gerard’s he grabs the mail that’s sticking out of the mailbox and puts it on top of the pizza box. As soon as Frank hits the doorbell, the dinosaur head appears, but instead of just money, there’s a piece of paper with splashes of color.

“Wow, you finished it already?” Frank asks, sticking the money in his change bag and then examining the flyer. 

There's a cluster of different shaped Tupperware in various colors morphed into monsters. The salad bowl seems to be the leader with it’s extravagant cape and sword pointed up in the sky. The other circular containers and drink dispensers are squared off against an army of leftover pizza, noodles, and vegetables. 

“This is great,” Frank laughs, tracing over the comic book styled artwork and exaggerated lettering announcing when the battle takes place.

“Yeah? I’m a bit rusty,” Gerard says. 

“Nah, this is awesome,” Frank says, sitting down to get comfortable. “Really. I’d love to see some of your other stuff.”

“I, uh…” Gerard starts, then Frank hears him take an audible breath, “I’ve got a sketchbook.”

Frank smiles at the dinosaur that’s still hanging out the door. “I’ve got time.”

He watches the dinosaur slip back inside the house and settles into a comfortable position on the porch, assuming that he’s going to have to wait for Gerard to come back with the sketchbook. So he’s not expecting the door to open and for Gerard to be standing in the doorway. 

“Um,” Gerard says, rubbing his eyes and then dropping his hands and shaking them a bit, “Do you, uh, do you want to come inside maybe?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you’re curious, Pete’s poem comes from one of his old [blogs](http://youputthefuninfuneral.blogspot.com/2006/). 
> 
> I also created a [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0JU9PHT5iexFxywZQORgDS?si=G2xEWOlUSv-5SHoFS_MCwA) for this fic if you’re interested. 
> 
> If you follow me on Twitter, then you already know that I’ve been loving [All the Riches, Baby](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26349103/chapters/64170835). It’s such a fun read and I love how extra Gerard is in this as well as the amazing imagery. 
> 
> [When Day is Night Alone](https://archiveofourown.org/works/82541) is a really powerful fic. I love found family fics, and if you’re reading this fic then it’s probably your jam as well. I just love older fics that have all of bandom included, it’s always such a cool experience to see how all the characters will weave together. Mikey and Pete are the biggest sweethearts in this and Gerard is fantastic. This is an older fic, so Bob is present and his character is maybe my favorite. I know not everyone is down with reading Bob in fics but...it’s fiction and he’s a character, don’t let irl drama spoil fanfic. Mind the warnings, the fic covers some intense topics.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, disclaimer time:
> 
> This fic talks a lot about mental illness (and honestly, when don't my fics talk about mental illness?). This fic in particular is really personal to me because I'm basing Gerard's experience off my own experiences. I know some of the mannerisms Gerard portrays in this chapter could be considered OCD traits, but I'm not a mental health professional and I was never diagnosed with OCD. 
> 
> This is also a note to tell you not to use fan fiction to self diagnose or mirror your own behaviors off the characters. This is a story, nothing more. Please seek professional help if you feel you need it.

“Do you want something to drink?” Gerard asks shyly when Frank follows Gerard into the kitchen. 

“Sure, whatever is fine,” Frank says cautiously, trying to figure out his move here. 

Gerard and Mikey’s house is even more run down on the inside than it had been on the outside. There’s a couple floorboards coming loose and curling up, the baseboards look like they’re caked in years worth of dirt and grime, the paint is chipping off the walls, and Frank eyes the ceiling carefully because it sorta looks like it’s going to cave in. 

“Um, I’ve got water,” Gerard says after looking into the fridge and frowning a bit. His cheeks are starting to crimson from embarrassment and Frank smiles a bit. He can’t help it, Gerard is adorable when he’s embarrassed. That’s probably a weird thing to think, but Frank shakes it off with the knowledge that he’s just a weird guy. 

“Water’s great,” Frank says, watching Gerard move to reach above the sink where the cups are kept. They’re neatly stacked, unlike the shape of the rest of the house, and there’s a sticky note signalling that the cluster of cups on the right side of the cabinet have been “Gerard approved”. 

Gerard takes two of the Gerard Approved Cups down and brings them to the tap to fill them up. He pauses when they’re full and stares at them as the water settles and goes completely still and clear before Gerard hands one of the cups to Frank. 

Frank...doesn’t say anything. Obviously Gerard has some anxiety issues going on, but he’s starting to learn that Gerard lives his life pretty different from Frank’s besides the fact he won’t go outside. 

“My room’s downstairs,” Gerard says, nodding towards the hall before leading Frank out the room. Frank takes his time walking behind Gerard, staring at the photos on the wall. They’re of Gerard and Mikey, all from different ages up until high school. This has to be the house Gerard grew up in, and it makes Frank wonder where Mikey and Gerard’s parents are. It doesn’t really make sense that their parents would leave them struggling like this, but Frank doesn’t really want to think of the alternative. 

Frank frowns when Gerard opens a wooden door and starts down the rickety steps to a basement.  _ He sleeps in a basement? _ Frank’s prepared to see a shit ton of cobwebs, something to rival the macabre state of the upstairs. So he’s surprised when he reaches the bottom of the stairs and sees a room with soft lighting given off from strung up fairy lights, pastel tapestries and fabrics softening the walls, and various rugs that range in textures and colors. 

“Wow,” Frank says softly, feeling like he can’t speak normally down here or it’ll break the ambiance. 

Gerard looks a little confused, and Frank can see why. Gerard hardly leaves this room, this is his constant environment so he probably doesn’t see how magical it really is. 

“You can make yourself comfortable,” Gerard says, then he wrinkles his nose like he’s debating something--though he must think better of it, because he moves to the desk that’s pressed up against one of the velvety walls. 

Frank turns to the bookcase that’s near the steps as Gerard shifts though his desk. He’s got more comic books that Frank’s ever seen outside a store before. All the trades are neatly filed on the shelves, and then there’s crates on the lower shelves that have issues protected in clear sleeves. They’re not organized much by anything, but Frank can tell that Gerard put them away with purpose. He glances around and finds an old television that probably came from a garage sale sitting on the floor with a stack of DVDs sitting next to it. He’s got a DVD case sitting on top and when Frank picks it up, he sees that Gerard was watching  _ The Neverending Story _ at some point. 

Frank picks it up and turns it in his hands, he hasn’t watched this movie in a long time. He was still sorta pissed at the film crew for killing that fucking horse for a stupid scene. Frank had cried for days after he saw that part in the movie as a kid, and then later when he found out the horse really did die, he was hit with all that sadness again. 

“Wait, what are you doing?” Gerard asks, voice coming out a little strangled.

Frank turns and raises an eyebrow. “Oh, sorry, I was just looking at this movie. Did you know that the horse really died during that shoot? It’s so fuc--”

“You can’t touch that,” Gerard says, eyebrows knitting together. He takes a step back and stares at Frank like he’s got the plague or something. 

Frank sets the case down and holds his hands up. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize it was--”

Gerard shifts on his feet, pressing himself further back against the desk and Frank really doesn’t know what to say to make it better. Mostly because he’s not sure what exactly he did wrong, but clearly it was something major to warrant this kind of reaction from Gerard. 

And Gerard looks like he’s getting increasingly more worked up, fidgeting more and bringing his hands up to dig into his shoulder. Frank can tell he’s breathing quicker and that if he talked right now, it’d probably be shaky. 

“I can go,” Frank says carefully, taking a step back towards the steps. 

Gerard doesn’t say anything, but there’s a waiver in his expression, like he’s upset with himself. It makes Frank’s insides ache and he wants to reach out to him, but he knows he can’t go near Gerard right now since he’s the cause of this anguish. 

Instead he whispers, “I’m sorry,” and then hurries up the stairs, not stopping until he gets through the odd house and out the door. 

Where he runs into Mikey. 

Mikey stumbles on the porch and he glares up at him. “What is with you and running into me?”

“Sorry,” Frank breathes, looking back at the door he just ran out of. 

Mikey narrows his eyes. “Wait, were you inside?”

“Look,” Frank says, pulling out a cigarette shakily and sticking it between his lips, “I didn’t know…”

Mikey bites his bottom lip then sighs, “Do you have another one of those?”

Frank holds out his pack of smokes and eyes Mikey as he takes one. Mikey raises his eyebrow and Frank thinks  _ oh, right  _ and grabs a lighter out of his back pocket to light Mikey’s cigarette, then his. 

“What’d you do?” Mikey asks without much heat in his voice, which doesn’t really make Frank feel any better about the whole thing. 

“I touched a movie case?” Frank says in a question, because he doesn’t know why that would be such a big deal but Mikey nods like he totally understands. 

“ _ The Neverending Story _ ?” Mikey asks, blowing smoke in Frank’s direction. 

Frank nods slowly. 

“Right,” Mikey says stiffly, hoisting himself up on the ledge of the porch. He looks down at his legs swinging over the ground and says, “So that DVD case has been sitting there since our parents died.”

Oh. Oh,  _ fuck _ . 

Frank eyes the spot next to Mikey and wonders if Mikey would be put off if he sat down next to him. But then he thinks, maybe it’s best to keep some distance between them since Mikey doesn’t quite seem cool with him just yet. 

“Yeah,” Mikey says even though Frank didn’t say anything, “He got bad after they died. It’s like he hadn’t really thought of death until the car accident. I mean he just…” Mikey trials off and shrugs, taking another drag of the cigarette before, “he just started to overthink it, you know?”

Frank doesn’t, so he just keeps smoking and hopes Mikey will keep talking. 

He does. “It started out small. He was scared to drive, which, you know, I get. I didn’t really want to drive again after what happened either, but Gerard stopped getting into cars with people. And it wasn’t that big of a deal because he’d just take the bus and train to work or to friends’ houses and it was fine.”

Frank gives in and goes to hoist himself next to Mikey, rolling his eyes a bit at how much further his feet come off the ground compared to Mikey’s. Mikey must notice too because he sorta cracks a smile, at least as much of a smile that Mikey can manage when he’s not around Pete. Frank nudges his foot for Mikey to continue, and he’s a bit surprised when Mikey actually does. 

“Um, so the car thing just started to morph into something worse. He started reading about all these horrible things online, like ways you could die and he’d just freak himself out about it. And I “--Mikey huffs, sounding annoyed as he ashes his cigarette a bit aggressively-- “I tell him all the time that if he leaves out a glass of water, it’s not going to get laced with something. But you just can’t reason with him, it’s...I just let him have his rules.”

“I saw the cups,” Frank offers, kicking his heels back against the ledge of the porch. 

“Yeah, I have to wash them in front of him so he knows they’re clean,” Mikey sighs, and looks at Frank. “Are you going to dip out now?”

Frank frowns and feels his eyebrows pinch together. “What? No, I--”

“Because you can,” Mikey says, looking him directly in the eyes, which is a little unsettling considering the way Mikey ignored him at the poetry slam.

Frank holds his ground though and shakes his head. “No, I’m not.”

Mikey doesn’t look away, and it’s like he’s trying to look in Frank’s soul. The guy is fucking intense, but Frank’s starting to understand that he’s got good reason. And his heart softens a bit towards Mikey, because he’s glad Gerard has a brother like Mikey to look after him. 

“Good,” Mikey finally says, flicking his cigarette butt over the ledge of the porch. Frank sorta wants to tell Mikey that he’d appreciate it if he didn’t toss cigarette butts in the garden he cleaned out, but he doesn’t want to push his luck. Mikey looks towards the door and purses his lips. 

“Should I go back in and apologize?” Frank wonders. 

Mikey shakes his head. “Nah, you’ll embarrass him more. Just...if he doesn’t reach out in the next day or two, come back around. He can get stubborn.” 

Frank takes that as his cue to leave and stands, leaning down to put out his cigarette and sticking the butt in his pocket. “Yeah, ok. Tell him I said sorry.”

Mikey shrugs. “Nothing to be sorry for. You didn’t know.”

*

“You have anxiety or whatever, right?” Frank starts off with when he sits at the counter where Pete is rolling silverware.

Pete furrows his brows and looks up at him. “Um, good morning to you too.”

Frank grins and takes some silverware to help roll. “Sorry,” he says then tries again, “Hi, I need help with this guy who may or may not be Mikey’s brother.”

Pete snorts and shakes his head. “Well, fuck. Um, yeah I have anxiety but it’s not a one size fits all illness, you know?”

Frank purses his lips. “So you’re saying I shouldn’t go for it.”

Pete huffs and sets down the silverware he was working on, startling Frank a little at the sound of metal clanking against the countertop. “No, that’s not what I’m saying.”

Frank hesitates, his hands stilling on his silverware. “Um…”

Pete starts to fiddle with the strings of his hoodie, looking really fucking uncomfortable and it makes Frank wish he’d never brought this up. He sorta assumed Pete would be fine talking about it since he was so open about everything. And well, maybe it’s like when Pete does his poetry. He can only be brave if it’s on his own terms, and if he has the option to look away. He just thought that Pete would have a better prospective of this since he’s...and well fuck, Frank is a total dick. 

“Here’s the thing, Frank,” Pete starts, leaning forward on the counter. He looks at him directly just as Mikey did and Frank wonders which of the two taught each other how to do that. Becuase it’s fucking creepy. “Gerard’s anxiety isn’t all he is--no, let me finish,” Pete says when Frank tries to say that of course Gerard is more than his anxiety, “but you’re going to have to be respectful towards what he’s going through. And you have to want better for him without diminishing his own person...does that make sense?”

Frank furrows his brows and Pete cracks a smile. “So like, Patrick will remind me to take my meds in the morning, but he doesn’t make it a big deal. He doesn’t baby me, you know? Because that’s the worst. Being with someone, friends or romantic, and them only seeing your illness.”

Frank can sorta understand where he’s coming from. When he was younger, he was known as the kid who was always out sick. He was that kid who always kept nasal spray in his bookbag and sometimes kids didn’t even bother to invite him to places because a lot of the time he’d have to cancel because he was ill. “Yeah, I get that.”

Pete holds his gaze for a moment, then nods. “Ok, good.”

There’s a moment of awkward silence before Pete starts rolling silverware again. Frank picks his back up and asks before he can think twice, “Is that why Mikey is so messed up?”

It’s Patrick who says, “Yeah, he won’t let anyone help him.” Frank looks up and wonders how much of the conversation Patrick had heard before he stepped out of the kitchen. 

“We do what we can,” Pete sighs, piling his rolled silverware into the tub that they keep under the counter. 

“He’s taking too many classes,” Patrick insists, “If he’s going to work two jobs, he should drop his classes. Or cut one of his jobs--”

“He  _ can’t _ , Trick,” Pete grits out, and Frank wonders if this is what kids feel like when their parents are arguing. “It’s not like Gerard can work.”

“Well then he should get disability or something,” Patrick says. 

“You say that like it’s so easy to do,” Pete grumbles, “I’ve looked into it and it’s a long process. A process that Mikey doesn’t have time to go through because he’s working two jobs and going to school.”

“Right, so he should drop something--”

“You think  _ I  _ don’t know that?” Pete fires at him, “You think that I’m not sick of getting sidelined because he doesn’t have time for me? And then I have to feel like shit because I’m needy and pissed that Mikey can’t put aside his only family for me? Yeah, Patrick, keep fucking lecturing me about things I don’t know about.”

Frank’s eyes widen as Pete shoves the container of silverware under the counter. “I’m taking a five,” he hisses, storming away from the counter. 

“Take a ten!” Patrick calls after him. 

“Fuck off, Trick!” Pete fires off, but he’s still walking through the kitchen, so it doesn’t sound as angry by the time it reaches Frank and Patrick. 

Frank wishes he had more silverware to roll so he had something to do with his hands. “Is he going to be ok?”

Patrick bites his lower lip and turns his back to Frank so he can make a new pot of coffee. Pete’s told him how Patrick always takes care of him, but Frank thinks that Patrick doesn’t really know what he’s doing either. Patrick is considerably younger than them and he wonders what Patrick's story really is.

“Pete has his own way of dealing with things,” Patrick says, filling the top of the machine with ground coffee beans. “And it’s not always the best.”

Well that sounds pretty ominous. “Pete said you’re the one that moved him from Chicago.”

“It was a joint effort.”

Frank’s learning that while Pete might be down to spill all his dirty laundry, Patrick isn’t that keen to talk about it. He’s too protective of Pete. And Frank can really respect that. It seems like the more he hangs out at this diner and with Pete, the more he sorta wants to protect him too. And introduce him to Ray. He could probably use a Ray hug. 

“He’s lucky to have you,” Frank says instead of pressing more, because he doesn’t really want to know the darker parts of what got Pete here. He just...well, he was being nosey, but he feels like he’s still trying to sketch out his blueprint for understanding his friends. When did they all get so broken and complicated?

Patrick sighs and flips on the switch to start the coffee machine before leaning his elbows on the counter. “He’s my family. You do what you need to for your family.”

*

“Isn’t that OCD?” Hambone asks, cracking open a beer and handing it to Frank.

Frank shrugs. “I don’t know, maybe?”   
  
“OCD is like compulsive thoughts, right?” Ray asks, shoving a handful of pretzels into his mouth. 

“I’m really not a shrink, guys,” Franks huffs. 

“Well,” Ray starts, sorting through the various video games that they had to play. They were supposed to play Mortal Kombat tonight, but Ray always loses so Frank’s pretty sure he’s trying to find one to talk them into playing instead. “What are you going to do?”

Frank frowns around his beer. “What do you mean?”

“Are you still going to hang out with the guy?” Hambone asks, “Or...I mean, you probably can’t date him--”

“Hold up,” Ray says, setting down the games. “Why can’t Frankie date him? Just because he’s a bit anxious?”

“A bit?” Hambone challenges, “He doesn’t leave his house and he freaked out when Frank touched a DVD case.”

“Mikey says he’s got rules,” Frank chimes in before they get into some moral debate, “I just need to learn them and I’ll be fine.”

Ray rolls his eyes. “You’re awful at following rules.”

Hambone nods seriously, which is a bit hard to take  _ seriously _ when he’s chewing on the end of one of those giant lollipops that he gets at the gas station a couple blocks down. “And what about dates?”

“What about dates?” Frank fires back. 

Ray sighs. “Hambone’s right. It’s not like you’d be able to take him out to the movies or--” Ray pauses for dramatic effect, “ _ shows _ .”

Frank honestly hadn’t even thought about that. And if he was being real with himself, he hadn’t really put much thought into this at all. He just liked the guy and wanted to hang out with him. Though, that wasn’t being real. Frank  _ liked _ the guy. He doesn’t know why really. Maybe it was the dinosaur head sticking out the door when he first met him or the way he stood on the porch and waved at him that second time. Or maybe it was the fact that Gerard let him borrow his CD when Frank mentioned he lost his copy. Or the fact that he opened the door and  _ tried _ for Frank. 

No one ever tried for Frank, no one he ever dated anyway. Ellie had been so up her own ass about her band and Andy was alway needing to borrow money for one thing or another. And he hadn’t really had relationships that lasted long enough for the other person to catch on to what Frank wanted. Frank was always too focused on the other person anyway, something that Ray would usually get on his case about.

“We can watch movies at his house,” Frank finds himself answering, “And I...I’ll just go to shows without him I guess.” Though that sounded pretty shitty. One of the things he always looked for in a relationship was someone to share his love of music with. “I mean, he likes music we can--”

“Don’t say you’ll just listen to records or watch live performance DVDs,” Hambone interjects, “It’s not the same. And, well, fuck, Frankie, it’s not going to be fair to either of you if you’re settling for something you know isn’t going to work out.”

Ray stares at Hambone for a second, almost in disbelief because there are rare occasions where Hambone says something profound. They happen, but usually there’s weed involved. “Hambone’s right, Frank, think about this. Really think about it this time, yeah? Don’t just say you’re going to then show up at his house tomorrow with plans to redo their floors.”

Frank scoffs. “I didn’t even know how to fix a step, how the fuck am I going to redo hardwood floors?” Ray narrows his eyes at him, so Frank gives in and says, “Yeah, ok, fine. I’ll think about it.”

Except he really doesn’t, because after he leaves Hambone’s house, he drives over to Gerard’s house. He grabs the mail starting to pile in the mailbox and takes the steps up two at a time before ringing the doorbell. 

For a moment he worried that Gerard wouldn’t come to the door since he wasn’t expecting anyone, but he wonders if Mikey had told Gerard to be expecting Frank to come around because the door opens a crack, “Frank?”

“Yeah,” Frank says in the softest tone he can manage, “You don’t have to let me in. We can go back to talking through the door, I just wanted to make sure we were ok?”

Frank can sort of make out Gerard’s features through the small space between the door and frame, he can see Gerard’s brow furrow. “Why are you even here?”

“Because I like hanging out with you?” Frank says, feeling the words raise in a question, because, duh. Why else would he be here? 

“Why?” Gerard asks, sounding a bit like a dumbfounded toddler. 

“Because you have good taste in music and you exchange money with a toy dinosaur,” Frank says, smiling a bit when he sees Gerard blush a little, “And, you know what?”

Gerard sniffles a little. “What?”

Frank huffs and crosses his arms. “I don’t really need to explain why I want to be your friend, I just do, ok? You’re not some freak, so stop treating yourself that way. And stop expecting the worst from me, because that’s really not fair. To me. It’s not fair to me and what this”--Frank gesture to the space between them--”could be.”

Gerard cocks his head to the side like he’s really considering, and the space between the door and the frame grows a bit as if Gerard isn’t aware he’s letting Frank in just a bit more. “Could be?”

Frank shrugs. “Well you’re not going to find out if you push me away.”

Gerard’s face pinches together, like he’s going through all the bad things that could happen. 

Frank holds his hands up, like he’s surrendering and he’s not sure why he thinks that’s a good idea, but it seems like the least threatening stance he could take right now. “Mikey says you’ve got rules. I can learn them.”

His face crumples a bit. “I...it’s a lot.”

“I got a good memory,” Frank promises, “I still can recite all fifty states in alphabetical order from elementary.”

Gerard snorts a little. “That doesn’t really count, you just learned the song.”

“So, I’ll make a new song,” Frank protests, “I’ll write you a song and I’ll learn your rules.”

The conversation he had with Ray and Hambone about Frank going all in starts to worm it’s way back in his brain. Because this is quickly becoming like all those other times, but there’s something in his heart that swears this is different. Gerard is different, and not in the he-won’t-leave-the-house way, but in a bigger way. A way that Frank hasn’t totally figured out yet, and that feels really fucking good. 

And so does Gerard opening the door more. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think we’re going to get on a schedule with this fic. It’ll give me some discipline and will probably guarantee longer chapters...and make me work on my other projects I’ve been neglecting. We’ll see. 
> 
> For our first rec,[Constant Work in Progress](https://archiveofourown.org/works/943666), I’m dishing out an amazing kid!fic. Think emo Raising Helen where Frank is Kate Hudson. Frank is thrown into parenthood while working as a secretary at an elementary school. Of course Gerard is the hot art teacher, and of course shenanigans ensue. I will warn you that the ending is very realistic and might not be the most satisfying conclusion you’re looking for, but I strongly recommend that you do not let this deter you from reading this beauty. 
> 
> [Spin for You](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3376904) is totally a comfort fic of mine. It’s Petekey and short and really sweet. Mikey and Pete are supposed to hang out, but then Mikey gets hit with some pretty bad anxiety. 
> 
> Can I interest you in some non-sexual bondage? [Care and Feeding](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2768648) is another really sweet fic. It’s Gabe/Mikey/Pete which is probably my other favorite OT3 besides Mikey/Pete/Patrick. It’s sorta the epitome of my favorite kind of fic.
> 
> Also, reminder that this fic has [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0JU9PHT5iexFxywZQORgDS?si=hbnzRpF5RKOynKXMXyh2FA)
> 
> And, last thing I promise, we are doing Bandom Big Bang 2021! Find all out the information you need to sign up [ here ](https://bandombigbang2021.tumblr.com/post/636632480159531008/bandom-big-bang-2021). If the word count requirement freaks you out, you can still participate by being a Creator. Creators are able to submit artwork, playlists, and one shots to accompany one of the fics submitted for this challenge. If you don’t really feel like doing that either but still want to participate, consider being a beta for someone’s fic! We have a [ discord (18+) ](https://discord.gg/jtbwgZNu6K)for anyone interested where you can get support from other participants and ask any questions you might have. Or, you can always message [me](https://throwupsparkles.tumblr.com/), or my good friend[ Pyrchance ](https://pyrchance.tumblr.com/)who is the other mod, if you have any questions or concerns. 
> 
> Alright, that’s it for announcements and recs! Hope to see you back here next Monday!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the sweet comments last chapter. I was a bit nervous revealing how personal this fic is to me, but as always, you all are amazing <3

Frank’s standing at the Xerox machine at the library in his neighborhood, paying a shit ton to print the flyers off in color. He thought libraries were supposed to be a free service for the community. If he knew he was going to have to pay for his copies, he would have gone to the Kinko's where at least some apathetic college kid would stare at him instead of crazy old lady Martha with her weird lazy eye. 

It’s kinda worth it though, to make sure Gerard’s drawing is in color. He doesn’t think it would have had packed as much of a punch if it was in black and white. 

Gerard had led Frank back down to his room the other day and handed him the fyler. “You left this last time.”

And Frank thought that things would have been awkward at first, while they tried to figure out each other’s footing again to make sure no one stepped on any more toes. But it wasn’t. It was easy to sit on the floor against Gerard’s bed and watch  _ Back to the Future _ while Gerard kept his hands busy with his sketchbook, reciting lines without looking up.

Frank watched Gerard to learn what would set him off, kept his distance until he learned what was ok. Sitting next to each other, their hands sometimes brushing each other or knees knocking together, seemed to be alright. Frank had been careful about not touching anything that Gerard didn’t hand over for him to inspect. And they spent hours going through some of Gerard’s comic books, way later than Frank tends to like to stay out when he’s got an opening shift the next morning. But he couldn’t tear himself from the soft, comforting basement--he could see why Gerard never left the house. And he couldn’t keep his eyes off Gerard and the way his eyes sparkled when he really got going about Wolverine. He didn’t want to be anywhere he couldn’t hear the way Gerard’s voice sorta squeaked when he got really excited about something, almost like his vocal chords hadn’t been used like that in such a long time. 

It made Frank sad when he let himself think about it, how Gerard was alone so often. He had Mikey, but Mikey was working or at school most of the time. And from the way Gerard and Mikey acted with Frank, it didn’t seem like they had a lot of friends over. 

“I’ve only been over a couple of times,” Pete confirmed, “And that was mostly just so Mikey could change before we went out.”

So Frank’s sorta made it his mission to go over as much as he can, except he’s started to pick up more shifts at work. 

“I just can’t help you with your car insurance anymore, hon,” his mom had sighed, her hand covering her face like she was embarrassed. 

Which really just made Frank feel worse. He was an adult, and if he’d maybe studied something computer related, he’d have a job where he could pay his own car insurance and probably have his own place. But instead, he’s relying on tips and he’s  _ this _ close to asking Pete for a couple shifts or something at the diner. 

Frank sets his flyers in a folder so they don’t get bent, and then gathers all his things into his bookbag before heading out so he can make his shift. Frank really hates working Wednesday nights because that’s when Kyle works. 

Kyle is one of those assholes that peaked in high school and won’t shut the fuck up about it. Frank really doesn’t know why Brian hired the guy, he must have lost a bet or  _ something _ , because he’s a fucking tool. He’s got that annoying surfer boy hairstyle with all the cheesy highlights and he’s got one of those ‘Salt Life’ stickers on the back of his trashy neon green Hummer. And Frank isn’t one to really judge based on looks, ok? He tried to be nice to the guy on his first day. But then Kyle quirked his eyebrow at Frank’s painted nails and refused to take him on his delivery runs when Frank was still in training because he didn’t want Frank’s “queer hands touching his car” which is fucking hilarious because Frank’s pretty sure everyone in that fucking pizza joint--Kyle excluded--has sucked cock at least once. Kyle’s the odd one out here, and Frank doesn’t understand why he keeps showing up on Wednesday nights. 

Probably so he can buy more hair gel and Hollister cologne. 

“Ay, Frankie, I need you to take out this delivery,” Kyle says as soon as Frank clocks in. 

He’s also not sure why Brian leaves him in charge so much. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that Frank almost burnt the place down that one time he was left in charge, but he swears that the oven had it out for him and, really, he hadn’t been  _ that _ stoned. 

And Frank doesn’t want to start shit with Kyle this early in the night. Not when he got another rejection letter in the mail from this local young poet’s anthology, which doesn’t make sense because he was a local young poet, how the fuck did he not get included? Then he sorta spiralled all day in his self doubts while looking at his past due student loan bill. So he just shrugs and takes the order, mentally rolling his eyes when he realizes it’s for Mrs. Fuller and her bratty kid who always comes to the door and shoots him with a nerf gun. 

But he lights a cigarette and starts up  _ Raw Power _ before backing out of the parking lot. Mrs. Fuller’s house is near the diner and Frank slows as he nears the street that’d take him straight there. He much rather be sitting in a booth watching Pete chat up the customers and Mikey look like someone just shot his cat. And he’d kill to have something to eat that wasn’t cut up peppers from work. 

He’s staring longingly down the street when someone honks at him and he’s realized he’s sitting at a green light. He accelerates and almost hits Mikey Way again, who apparently still refuses to look both ways before crossing the street. 

Frank sticks his head out the window to flick the guy off behind him who won’t stop honking and then yell at Mikey, “Seriously?”

Mikey doesn’t look as startled as someone who almost got squashed by a Toyota. Instead he comes around to the passenger side and climbs into the car. 

“Um?” Frank starts, then jumps when more honking blares behind him. 

“Can I just sit in here for a bit?” Mikey says in a small voice and, fuck, how is Frank supposed to say no to that?

So he just nods and finally goes through the intersection even though it’s a red light at this point. Mikey’s lips twitch a little at that and he reaches to the center console where Frank keeps his cigarettes. He’s kinda glad Mikey doesn’t ask before taking one because Frank’s pretty sure he’d tell him to just keep the pack. Anything to get that sad look out of his eyes, and what the fuck is with him and the sad Way brothers?

“I’ve got a delivery,” Frank says, “But I can take you home after if you want.”

Mikey shakes his head and leans his face out the open window a bit like a dog on a car ride. “Nah, I’ll just hang out with you.”

Frank wants to say something. Maybe,  _ shouldn’t you go home to Gerard? _ or  _ you know I’m working right? _ But neither make it to his lips, because deep down Frank can really understand where he’s coming from. Sometimes going home is just really hard to do. 

“I’m surprised you’re not working,” Frank says, turning down Mrs. Fuller’s street. 

Mikey shrugs. “I’m supposed to be at my coffee shop shift, but I called in sick.”

Frank eyes him. He definitely does not look sick. “Rad,” he says, pulling up to Mrs. Fuller’s house. “Um, just wait here. And keep the car running, that little shit likes to chase me with his nerf gun sometimes if he doesn’t get enough hits in at the door.”

Mikey’s eyes sorta go wide, and it’s maybe the first time he’s actually seen Mikey look concerned before. “Um, ok.”

Frank reaches in the backseat to grab the pizza and drops his cigarette out the window before getting out so he can just get this delivery over with. As soon as the door opens, he gets a face full of nerf darts to the point that he almost drops the pizza. 

“Allen!” Mrs. Fuller scolds, though she doesn’t seem to ever get angry enough to hide the nerf gun when she orders pizza. She does tip him fairly decent and he wonders if that’s so he doesn’t report to the authorities that she’s housing a potential assassin or something. 

Mikey’s laughing at him when Frank slinks into his seat, rubbing his cheek that’s still stinging. “Shut it,” Frank grumbles. 

“That was amazing,” Mikey cackles, and it’s almost making Frank laugh because he’s not really sure he’s heard Mikey laugh like this. He sort of has this really dorky laugh that makes Frank wonder if he was a geek growing up. The cool demeanor he’s been embodying has started to crack more and Frank can sorta see that kid he’s seen pictures of in the Way house. 

“Next time, I’m bringing you as a shield,” Frank mutters, pulling away from the curb. 

“Because you’re so short?” Mikey teases. 

“Because you’re an  _ ass _ ,” Frank retorts, “And if you don’t shut up I’m going to call your work and tell them you’ve been magically cured from whatever made up ailment you told them.”

“Yeah, right,” Mikey scoffs, but he presses his lips together to keep from laughing as obnoxiously. 

Frank doesn’t say anything as Mikey opens Frank’s glovebox and starts to go through the CD collection he keeps in his car. He likes to rotate it fairly often, though there’s some that are always in here. 

“Frank’s driving jams?” Mikey asks, quirking up an eyebrow and Frank blushes at that, hoping Mikey doesn’t put it on because it’s definitely his guilty pleasures mix CD full of Backstreet Boys and NSYNC. And, hey, it’s mostly because of the nostalgic factor. Some of those songs just make him think about high school instantly. 

Luckily, Mikey doesn’t throw it in the stereo, instead he finds a Morrissey CD and Frank has to roll his eyes because, he’s so Gerard’s brother. “Why do you have two copies of  _ Siamese Dream _ ?” 

Frank doesn’t want to tell him that one of those is Gerard’s copy, and one of them is his lost copy that he found when he was sorting Tupperware in his room again. He just really likes listening to Gerard’s copy better, it obviously must be a special addition copy that sounds better than his. Not because it's Gerard’s or whatever. That doesn’t make sense. Not one bit. 

“Sometimes I forget I have a copy of something and I’ll accidently buy a second copy,” Frank says, watching Mikey opening Gerard’s copy with a slight quirk to his lips, “Don’t you ever do that?”

Mikey actually smiles that time and shuts the case carefully. “Sure,” he says softly, in a way that makes Frank’s heart stop for a moment. Because he says it like he’s in on the secret, and it makes Frank nervous that there’s even a secret to be in on. And he’s not sure if he wants  _ Mikey _ in on it, especially since apparently this secret has something to do with Mikey’s brother. 

When Frank pulls back up to work he purses his lips. “I’m pretty sure Kyle is going to keep me on deliveries all night, but you can come in if you want.”

Mikey shakes his head and lights up another one of Frank’s cigarettes. “I think I’ll just sit out here and smoke your cigarettes until you’ve got another order.”

Hanging out with Mikey is actually kind of fun. Once Frank gets over the fact that Mikey is Gerard’s brother and can tell him all the embarrassing things Frank does when he’s not paying attention. Like how he snorts sometimes if he laughs too hard or how he always turns down the radio when he’s trying to read the house numbers as if that’ll help him read better. But Mikey never calls him out on it, he just smirks a bit like he’s thinking of a really good insult in his head. Which would probably be just as bad, except he’s seen that look thrown at Pete and Patrick, so it makes Frank feel like he’s included. Like he’s made another friend. 

“I’m thinking of switching my major back to film,” Mikey says when Frank pulls up to a new customer’s house. Their house looks worse than the Way’s ever did and it’s got a single light swinging on the porch, like it’s straight out of a horror movie. “But Patrick says he’ll slit my throat if I have to start over with my credits, but I told him I’ve mostly done gen ed classes and...you’re not even listening to me.”

“I think this place belongs to a serial killer,” Frank stage whispers. 

Mikey leans over into Frank’s space and peers out the window. “Yeah, maybe. I’m pretty sure I see blood splatters on those basement windows.”

Frank’s eyes widen because, yeah, he can see them too now. “It’s like  _ The Burbs _ ,” Frank says, “I bet they bury the bones in the backyard.”

“If you knock on the door and bees come out,” Mikey says, “I’m leaving you behind. I’m allergic to bees.”

Frank whips his head to stare at him. “You’re coming with me.”

Mikey narrows his eyes. “Am not. I’m not even a pizza delivery guy.”

“Do you think we had special training to hand over pizza?” Frank asks, “Like, we had to learn a code where we can’t look someone in the eyes and we have to exchange a secret hand shake like a drug deal?”

“Have you ever bought drugs before?” Mikey asks, lips smirking again, “Because that’s definitely not what happens when you buy drugs.”

“I’ve bought plenty of drugs,” Frank protests, even though he’s only really bought from Hambone and his roommate in college. “And maybe you’re just meeting with the wrong dealers.”

“You’re ridiculous,” Mikey mutters, “And I’m not going up there with you. He’ll for sure think there’s something weird when two guys show up to drop off a pizza.”   


“Up? Why would he think that?” Frank asks, raising an eyebrow.

“I don’t know. Maybe he’ll think we’re the Feds undercover and--”

“Feds who look as young as us?” Frank wonders. 

“We’re prodigies who blew through  Quantico ,” Mikey explains, “And we’ve been sent to bring him in for questioning.”

“But,” Franks starts, “What evidence do we really have? I mean stains on the window aren’t exactly probable cause.”

“Feds,” Mikey says, “We do what we want.”   
  
“That is a really warped view of our government.”

“I thought you were punk,” Mikey says, then he looks back at the pizza in the backseat. “Pizza’s probably getting cold. And then he really will hack you up in the backyard.”

“If you come with me, you can have the rest of my pack,” Frank barters. 

“I want a new pack, yours is almost gone,” Mikey counters, “And a blue slushie.”

Frank considers it, since that will probably eat away at the entire tip he gets from this house, but he ends up saying, “Yeah, sure. Grab the pizza.”

“Why do I have to grab the pizza?” Mikey asks. 

“Because I at least have a uniform on,” Frank explains, “You’ll just look like a random kid off the street if you show up at his doorstep without anything.”   


“I think it’s sorta sexist that we’re assuming the serial killer is a man,” Mikey says, grabbing the pizza box. 

“As opposed to how normal it is we’re assuming he’s a serial killer?”

Mikey shrugs, apparently not having a comeback for that one. He grabs the pizza from the backseat and climbs out of the car, totally hiding a bit behind Frank which is just rich considering Mikey was making short jokes earlier. 

“You have to ring the doorbell,” Mikey says when they get closer to the porch. The steps at least look more intact that the Ways’ had been. 

“In case of the bees?” Frank snickers, going carefully up the steps. 

“Yeah,” Mikey says looking over Frank’s shoulder, “yeah, don’t knock.”

Frank’s had lots of weird experiences delivering pizzas, so this shouldn’t be an issue at all. And it’s really not, but he sorta feels like a kid playing pretend with Mikey. It makes him wonder if that’s what Mikey is doing too, and it makes him feel giddy and childish in a way he hadn’t in years. He’s pretty sure the person who opens the door is just going to be some elderly person who hasn’t had time to take care of the house and...fuck, Frank wonders if he’s going to be out here next week to garden and fix steps. 

Sure enough, it’s an old man who ends up giving Frank five dollars and a handful of butterscotch candy for a tip. 

“Well I feel like an asshole,” Mikey says, popping one of the candies in his mouth when they get back to the car, “But you still owe me cigarettes and a slushie.”

*

  
When Frank gets home, his smile from hanging out with Mikey all night instantly vanishes when he hears sniffles coming from the living room. 

He walks in carefully and lets out a sigh when he sees  _ Steel Magnolias _ on the television, which is the movie his mom always watches when she’s gone through a breakup because it helps her ‘cry it out’. And she’s got her pint of pistachio ice cream sitting in her lap, sniffling as she shovels another spoonful into her lipstick smeared mouth. 

Frank sits down next to her and holds up his arm. She instantly curls into him and wipes at her eyes. “He was going to be the one, Frankie. I could tell. He treated me like a lady.”

“Well, you  _ are _ a lady,” Frank mutters, biting his tongue before he spouts how sexist it is to have different expectations and treatments based on someone’s gender. He’s pretty sure his mom doesn’t need a rehashing of the lecture he’d sat through in his sociology class Sophomore year. 

“You know what I mean,” she grumbles. “He opened doors for me and held my hand when we crossed streets.”

Frank furrows his brows. “It sounds like he treated you like a toddler.”

“Frankie, you wouldn’t understand. It’s different for your generation. You guys don’t care about things like chivalry.”

“Because it’s something that should have died in the middle ages. Women can open their own damn doors.”

She snorts. “Not the point. Sorta how you took it upon yourself to fix that boy’s house?”   


“How’d you even hear about that?” Frank groans, tossing his head back in the couch cushion all dramatically. 

“Mrs. Toro told me.”

“Ray has such a big mouth,” Frank mutters, but he smiles a bit because it makes his mom laugh. 

“You’ve always had a big heart, Frankie,” his mom says, “I’m glad I did something right.”

Frank always feels weird when parents take claim over their kids like that, like they’re some farm animal they fattened up for the fair competition or whatever. It’s embarrassing and a bit objectifying, but he’s also willing to let that go because his mom is getting all teary eyed again. “You’re a great mom,” Frank says, reaching to the side where there’s a box of tissues on the side table. He hands it to her so she can wipe off the mascara tinted tear rolling down her cheek. “Now, did I miss the part where the dad shoots the firecrackers at the birds?”

“That’s the beginning of the movie,” his mom chuckles. 

“Well start it over,” Frank says, grinning because she beams at him and reaches for the remote to start the movie over. 

They only get about halfway through the movie before his mom dozes off and Frank extracts himself carefully from the couch so he doesn’t wake her. He turns off the TV and is throwing a blanket over his mom on the couch and picking up the half eaten pint of ice cream when his phone rings. 

He pulls it out on his way to the kitchen and grins when he sees it’s Gerard. “Hello?”

“Mikey said you hung out with him tonight,” Gerard says in a way that Frank realizes him hanging out with Mikey really means something. 

It almost makes his throat close up, but he manages, “Yeah, I almost hit him again.”

Gerard laughs. “Yeah, he spaces out a lot when he’s walking.”

“Sorta dangerous, someone should wrap that kid in those construction worker vests or something,” Frank says. 

“Hmm, I don’t think he’d really like to wear yellow.”

“I think there’s orange ones too,” Frank says. 

“Even worse. I don’t even think he owns anything orange.”

“Variety keeps life interesting,” Frank says, shoving the ice cream into the freezer, “Or so I’m told. I mostly wear black.”

“I’ve noticed.”

And Frank is trying  _ really _ hard not to look further into that than he should. “So, what’s up?”

“I’ve been drawing battling leftovers again,” Gerard says, “And I think the noodles are finally going to defeat the broccoli once and for all.”

“Why can’t they just get along?” Frank wonders, “You know, like pasta con broccoli?”

Gerard giggles into the speaker, making it sound all crackly and vibrate through Frank’s ear. He doesn’t think it’s really fair that Gerard’s laugh is so powerful already. Frank’s pretty much doomed, though he’s sure that ship sailed when he got hit in the shin by a dinosaur head. 

“Are you off tomorrow?” Gerard asks, “Because I was thinking that maybe I could turn these into thank you cards for the party. Is that a thing?”

Frank beams stupidly at the kitchen counter, smiling so hard he feels his cheeks ache. “Yeah, Gee, that’s a thing.”

There’s a pause, and then Gerard asks timidly, “So I’ll see you tomorrow?"

“Yeah, you’ll see me tomorrow.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So if you haven't seen The Burbs, it's a really wacky movie with Tom Hanks from 1989 where Tom Hanks and his best friend are convinced his neighbors are serial killers. My dad was obsessed with that movie and I just watched it on VHS (yes...I'm that old) the other day with him. 
> 
> I have early holiday gifts:
> 
> [Cover to Cover](https://archiveofourown.org/works/127165/chapters/180058) is one of those where I think most people have already read it, but if you haven’t, you should. It’s a great read and pretty fucking cute. 
> 
> It’s the holiday season so I’ve got to jam a cheesy holiday fic down your throat, right? [More Than You Could Ever Know](https://bandombigbang.livejournal.com/116682.html) is a super cute fic where Frank is an elf and is Gerard Way’s biggest fan. 
> 
> The first part of [Stray Heart](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28063020/chapters/68751594) was just posted and it’s already my newest favorite thing. It’s dog!frank x cat!gerard and it’s soooo good already. 
> 
> And then just so we don’t have all frerard, [I’m Tumbling Down a Hill. Please Catch Me.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3742774/chapters/8298859) is another adorable Petekey (I’m not sure if I’ve already rec’d this...I need to keep a list). Mikey owns a comic book store with Gerard and he meets Pete from Fall Out Boy at a bar. Cue super cute long distance montage. Also, Mikey has an awesome cat in this that gets its own Instagram.


	8. Chapter 8

“Why didn’t we get invited to your party?” Pete demands, sliding into the booth where Frank was filing his submissions into various envelopes for different anthologies, challenges, and literary journals. This time is going to be different, he can feel it. 

Frank sticks down the stamp he has on his thumb and looks up at Pete. “What?”

“You’re party,” Pete says, holding up one of the Tupperware party flyers, “I want to know why we weren’t invited.”

Frank smirks. “Do you even know what a Tupperware party is?”

“It’s a party with fighting food apparently,” Pete says, looking down at the flyer. 

“It’s a suburban mom thing. They all get together and eat discount cheese and buy up Tupperware to shove into their too little cabinet space,” Frank explains, resuming his stamping. 

“You realize that I have a diner, right?” Pete asks, grinning one of his famous Pete Smiles, “I have lots of needs for food storage.”

Frank shrugs. “You and Patrick can totally come, I just didn’t think you’d want to.”

Honestly, Frank’s a little concerned for his friends because Pete isn’t the only one who’s confronted him about the Tupperware party. Ray had looked like a kicked puppy dog when he asked why his  _ mom _ was going to this party and Ray hadn’t even heard about it. Hambone had asked if he could bring edibles and Brian had put his hands on his hips and told him that of course he was going, he supports all his idiotic employees. 

“Patrick loves shit like this,” Pete says, grabbing some envelopes and stamps to help Frank. “He likes going to all those Pampered Chef parties that his mom’s friends throw. He’s honestly a little hurt you didn’t--”

“Holy fuck,” Frank cuts him off, tossing his roll of stamps down on the table, “I seriously didn’t think a bunch of twentysomethings would want to sit in my mom’s living room and stare at Tupperware all evening. I was saving you all a Saturday, but if you’re so damn bored please, by all means, come and eat off brand snacks and watered down juice. Be my guest.”

“Great,” Pete says brightly, “We’ll bring cupcakes and if you wipe that frown off your face, I’ll even make the pumpkin cupcakes you like so much.”

“You mean you’ll ask Patrick to make them right?” Frank asks, “Because, no offense, your cupcakes taste like garbage.”

Pete pretends to be affronted and sticks a stamp upside down on purpose, “Yes, Patrick will make the cupcakes, you ungrateful little shit.”

Frank grins down at his stack of envelopes. “How’d you even find out about it?”

“Mikey told me about it,” Pete says, shrugging like it’s not a big deal. And, it wouldn’t be except Frank knows that things have apparently been pretty rocking with him and Mikey lately--if Pete’s outburst the other day was anything to go by. 

“Oh,” Frank says, then because he can’t help himself, “He seemed a bit down the other night.”

Pete nods, like he already knew that, and pushes the envelopes he stamped towards Frank, “Yeah. Listen, I’ve got tables.”

Frank looks around at the bare diner, but he doesn’t call Pete out on it. “Yeah, ok. Thanks for helping.”   


Pete gives him a grateful smile and hurries to the kitchen, probably to bug Patrick since that always makes him feel better. Frank packs up his envelopes and slips out of the diner. It’s cooler than normal, and Frank digs into his jacket pocket to find his skeleton gloves with the fingertips cut off. 

After he makes a stop at the mailbox nearby to dump his entries off, he heads to Gerard and Mikey’s place. Frank pulls the mail out of their mailbox before walking up the steps of the porch and ringing the doorbell. 

His phone buzzes and he looks down to see that Gerard texted him  _ it’s open _ . 

Frank frowns a bit, but lets himself in the house. He goes into the kitchen and sets the mail down in a neat stack on the table before turning to go down the hall and yelling, “Can I come down?”

“Yeah,” Gerard replies, “Sorry, I just--you’ll see.”

Frank sighs because that sounds vaguely ominous, but he takes the steps down into the basement. He instantly feels warmer when he sees the twinkle lights and feels as soft as the velvet drapes on the walls. But then he sees Gerard in the corner with an easel in front of him. His back is to Frank, but he can already tell he’s covered in paint, he can smell the heavy fumes of it and wonders how Gerard can stand it all day. 

“Getting in a groove?” Frank asks, because he knows how that goes. 

“Um, yeah,” Gerard says, looking like it’s painful to take a step away from the painting. But he does, gesturing to it like he’s welcoming Frank to come closer and take a look. 

At first, Frank just notices the heavy contrast of everything. He sees the heavy lines of black that make the vibrant colors seem like they’re three dimensional off the canvas. The closer he gets, the more detail he sees. It’s very comic book styled, but there’s a hard edge of realism in the images--the faces. They look like people that Frank knows, just that they’ve melted into their emotions more. They’ve become something more fanciful and magical with Gerard behind the paintbrush. 

“Who are they?” Frank asks softly, standing right in front of the painting now. 

He feels Gerard come up behind him, and he would have jumped when he felt Gerard’s chin rest on his shoulder if he weren’t so encaptured with the painting. “I don’t know,” Gerard admits, “But they’re not scared.”

Frank hums, and traces their expressions and sees that they’re so unashamed of who they are. There’s someone whose face is twisted in anguished, unapologetic anger. Another who is grinning without a care who sees. Another that looks like they’re in love. Brave. Something that Gerard wishes he was, Frank realizes only after he recognizes his own jealousy. 

He wants that too. 

*

Frank wakes up and knows it’s late or really, really early. 

He blinks a couple of times and realizes that he’s not in his own room after he sees a stack of comic books on a desk instead of a pile of Tupperware. He frowns and turns, freezing when he realizes that Gerard is laying next to him. 

They must have fallen asleep while they were watching  _ The Fellowship of the Ring _ . Frank remembers pretending not to see Gerard tear up when Gandolf dies in the mines of Moria, even though they both know he’s coming back. But then things got a little foggy with sleep and he’s not sure if he really did lay his head against Gerard’s shoulder or if he just dreamed that. 

Frank feels a little creepy watching Gerard sleep, but he’s sort of really fucking cute. Gerard’s hugging his pillow to his face and he’s snoring softly. His hair is mused and sticking up all over the place. His roots are starting to show, and Frank wonders if he should grab a box of black hair dye the next time he’s at the drugstore for his cigarettes. 

He looks over the bed and finds his phone sitting on the floor. He grabs it and makes a face when he realizes that it’s a little past two in the morning. He’s a little surprised that his phone isn’t full of messages from his mom, but then he remembers he’s actually an adult without a curfew. 

He could lay back down and go back to sleep, but he’s not sure how Gerard would feel about that in the morning. And he really doesn’t want to make things weird between them, so he slides out of the bed carefully and watches as Gerard scoots closer to where Frank had been laying. He tries really hard not to let his mind wonder about that, and grabs his keys and wallet off Gerard’s desk before picking up his shoes and making his way up the stairs quietly. 

And then he runs into Mikey. 

Again.

“Fuck,” Mikey hisses, catching his balance again. 

“Sorry,” Frank whispers, shutting the door to the basement quietly. 

Mikey raises an eyebrow. “You’re not sneaking out on my brother are you?”

Frank’s eyes widen. “What? No! It wasn’t like--you’re fucking with me aren’t you?”

Mikey smirks.

Frank takes in the fact that Mikey is wearing a leather jacket and he still has his shoes on. “Just getting in?” 

“Yes, mom,” Mikey says, rolling his eyes, then, “If you hurry you can probably catch a ride from Pete.”

At that, Frank darts out of the house and waves down Pete just as he’s backing out. Pete frowns and pokes his head out the window. “Frankie?”

Frank’s hopping on one foot, trying to get his shoes on as he makes his way down the driveway. “Hey, can I bum a ride?”

Pete snorts, but he leans over to unlock the passenger door. “Do I want to know why you’re at the Way house this late at night?”

“I fell asleep during Lord of the Rings,” Frank says, sighing in relief when he gets in the warm car. In his haste to get out the house, he apparently forgot his jacket down in Gerard’s room. 

Pete smirks like he knows all about leaving clothes behind in boys’ rooms and turns the vents so they’re pointing at Frank. “Lord of the Rings, huh? Is that what the kids are calling it?”

“I’m like a year younger than you, idiot,” Frank bites off, pulling out his pack of smokes, “Can I smoke in here?”

Pete nods and cracks a window so Frank can ash. “So things are going ok with you and Gerard?”

“How about I make a deal with you?” Frank says, lighting up. He blows smoke out the window and says, “You ask me about Gerard, I ask you about Mikey.”

Pete purses his lips and turns down a street that’s not heading towards his house. “Deal. Is this thing with Gerard just a puppy crush, because, Frank, if it is, you should leave him alone now before--”

“It’s not a puppy crush,” Frank interrupts, “I don’t know what it is, but it’s not that. Promise. I’m not just fucking around with him.”

Pete’s shoulders relax a little. And it sorta surprises Frank that Pete would get that worked up over Gerard, he hadn’t really thought they were close. Unless, “Are you protective over him for Mikey’s sake?”

“Gerard is Mikey’s life,” Pete says, and Frank can taste a little bit of bitterness there, “But also, Gerard is a really great guy.” Pete shoots him a grin. “You wasted a question. Why’d you fix their steps and shit?”

“Because it was the nice thing to do,” Frank says, taking another drag. “Talk about a wasted question. Are you and Mikey dating?”

“I don’t think you did it just to be nice,” Pete counters, then he sighs, “Mikey and I are...complicated.”

“Like friends with benefits?” Frank asks. 

“I guess,” Pete says, then he frowns, “But that sounds cheap, you know?”

“You love him,” Frank says. 

“Ok that was like three questions,” Pete huffs. 

“Two,” Frank corrects, “That last one wasn’t a question. I was stating a fact.”

Pete’s face constricts into something that makes Frank want to tell him to pull over so he can hug Pete and tell him it’s alright. Frank hasn’t ever been in the kind of love where it hurts. And he’s scared of that kind of love, the kind that’s so big that you can’t see past it. There’s no perspective, just a big ball of emotion that swallows you whole. 

“Does Gerard know you like him?” Pete asks, turning onto a road that brings them to the older part of town, where the antique store fronts are yellowing and salons have weathered lettering. 

“I think?” Frank asks, “I mean, that’s kinda grade school, right?”   


Pete laughs. “So you’re what? Just hanging around their house hoping he’ll figure it out one day?”

“It’s not just about that,” Frank says, and he takes a couple more drags to gather his thoughts. Because it’s not just that Frank...he’s not really sure how to explain it really. He knows dating is something different to him than what he wants with Gerard. When he thinks of dating, he thinks of late night hookups and rushed coffee in the morning. He thinks of alcohol filled gigs and jealous glances across a crowd. He thinks of the games that everyone plays, and he really doesn’t want that with Gerard. “I want to know him.”

“Aww,” Pete teases.

“Shut up,” Frank grumbles, lighting another cigarette off the butt of his spent one. “What was Mikey’s deal last week?”

“You’re going to have to be more specific,” Pete mutters. 

“He didn’t go to his second shift,” Frank explains, “I picked him up near the diner.”

Pete makes a circle around the old grade school that Frank used to go to and heads towards the neighborhood that Ray grew up in. “Oh. He failed a couple of his classes. Patrick told him it was a sign that he needed to unload a bit.”

“Why is he--”

“Because he’s the only one Gerard has, but he also doesn’t want to put his life on hold,” Pete explains. He reaches over and steals Frank’s pack. “That’s one of the things I love about him, though, so I can’t really be pissed.”

“But you are,” Frank presses. 

“Yeah,” Pete says, taking the lighter that Frank hands over. He lights up and says, “Have you ever been in love, Frank?”

“No,” Frank says, “I’ve thought I was at the time, but not really.”

“It sucks,” Pete says, smoke leaking out of his downturned lips. “But, it’s worth it, you know? The hurt, the...Mikey not answering my calls because he’s in class or work or he’s just too fucking tired to be on the phone, him falling asleep on me when I spent all afternoon in the kitchen with Patrick learning how to make pasta from scratch because that’s what Mikey’s grandma made him, or him constantly having to leave in the middle of the night because Gerard’s having an anxiety attack. It’s worth it for the good times.”

Frank swallows thickly and looks out the window. “What are the good times?” He asks quietly, because he’s wondering why anyone would put themselves through all that then. What was he doing with Gerard if that was what he had to look forward to?

“The nights he does stay,” Pete says quietly, “when I get to wake up next to him and he sorta pulls me in closer. Drinking cheap beer with him at shows and having to help get him home. You know he’s a  _ really _ giggly drunk?” Pete chuckles a bit and shakes his head.

Frank grins a bit at that and thinks maybe he needs to go to a show with Mikey soon just so he can see it. 

“And there was this time, before Gerard stopped working,” Pete says, “Mikey and I stayed up all night and sat on his roof in the middle of the summer. We didn’t know shit about constellations or anything, and you couldn’t see much because of all the lights and pollution, but we pointed up and made up stories. “

Frank’s silent and he realizes that ash has fallen onto his lap from him forgetting about the cigarette in his hand. 

“Yeah,” Pete says, “That was a good time.”

And then he turns to head towards Frank’s house. 

*

“Ok, look, Lisa, either you want the ‘Chop N Prep,” Frank grumbles, scribbling Melinda’s order down on one of the order forms he printed at the library, “Or you don’t, but you’re holding up my line. Melinda, you better be here November fifteenth when these measuring cups come in or I’m dropping them off at the soup kitchen.”

Melinda’s eyes widen but she takes her copy of the receipt and scurries off. Frank looks up from his forms at Lisa. “Well?”

“Fine,” she sighs, “Put me down for the ‘Chop N Prep’ and I want the micro pitcher too.”

“You get two for thirty,” Frank says, jotting down her name on the order form. 

“Yeah, ok,” she says. 

Frank rips out her copy of the receipt and hands it to her. “See you November fifteenth.”

She takes the receipt and walks away to reveal Mikey standing at his table looking amused. “You clearly missed your calling.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Frank mutters, then jumps when a flash goes off in his eyes. He blinks a couple of times before he realizes that Mikey is holding a camera. “What the hell?”

“Gerard told me to take photos,” Mikey says, shrugging, “He doesn’t know what a Tupperware party is, and to be honest, neither do I.”

“You buy Tupperware,” Frank bites out, filing his last two receipts into the plastic accordion folder he took from Brian’s office. Luckily, Brian is too busy stuffing his face full of Patrick’s pumpkin cupcakes to really notice. 

It’s a bit odd to have all his friends under one roof. He’d introduced Ray and Hambone to Mikey, Pete, and Patrick and of course they all got sucked into a long debate about music. Ray and Patrick tended to agree that music was more about precision and discipline, though Ray totally agreed with Pete that Metallica was one of the best bands in the world. Aside from Queen, which they all agreed on. 

“So,” Mikey says, “I actually have a favor to ask.”

Frank sticks the pen he’d been using behind his ear and sits back in his chair with his arms crossed. “Yeah?”

“I need a job,” Mikey says, actually looking a bit nervous.

“ _ Another _ job?” Frank asks incredulously, “And have Patrick kick my ass? No, thank you.”

“No, no,” Mikey says, winding up the film in the disposable camera he’s holding, “I sorta lost my job at the coffee place.”

“Because you skipped?”

“Because I spilled hot coffee down some guy’s pants,” Mikey corrects, looking back up from the camera with a hardened look, “but he deserved it.”

Frank nods, not going to ask. “Yeah, ok, I believe you. But let’s not mention that when we talk to Brian.”

“Brian?”

“My boss,” Frank says, “He’s the one with frosting all over his face.”

Mikey looks behind him and catches Brain face deep into a muffin. “I’m not sure if I’m disgusted or turned on. Maybe a bit both.”

Frank snorts. “Yeah, maybe don’t mention that either.”

“So you’ll put in a good word for me?” Mikey asks. 

Frank rolls his eyes and stands up, grabbing Mikey’s hand and walking him over to Brian. “Brian, this is Mikey. Mikey isn’t an asshole like Kyle, so you should hire him. And fire Kyle.”

Brian sighs, the kind that his mom makes whenever she gets another bill in the mail. “Look, I can’t just fire Kyle because you don’t like him.”

“No one likes him.”

“I know, but he’s ok at his job and he only really works one night a week, deal with it.”

“Can you still hire Mikey?” Frank asks, batting his eyelashes obnoxiously. 

Brian narrows his eyes at Frank before really looking at Mikey. “Wait, aren’t you the guy who yelled at us for fixing your steps?”

“You were scaring my brother,” Mikey says, shrugging. 

Brian sighs and brings up his hand to pinch the bridge of his nose. “Do you have customer service skills?”

“Tons,” Frank answers for him and Brian shoots him a look. “Sorry.”

“Yeah,” Mikey says, “I work at a diner right now. My bosses are actually the ones who made those cupcakes.

Brian looks at the cupcakes, then back up at Mikey and says, “You’re hired.”

*

Frank juggles the box of pizza and Tupperware container full of cupcakes as lets himself into the Way house. It should probably feel weird how much this place is starting to feel like  _ his _ home, but he tries not to dwell too much on it. It’s the magic, Frank thinks as he follows the sound of Blur down to the basement and chuckles when he sees Gerard’s hair sticking up with paint in it from tugging at his strands in frustration. 

The painting Gerard had been working on the last time Frank was over is coming together, Frank can see more texture in the faces and more dimension in the background. And, he can see the growing pile of acrylic paint tubes stacking up on the floor. 

“Alright,” Frank says, stifling a laugh when Gerard huffs from being interrupted, “Lunch break.”

Gerard turns and smiles a bit when he sees the cupcakes. “Are these the famous Patrick cupcakes?”

Frank nods. “You’re lucky I put some aside for you before the party started or my boss would have eaten them all.”

“Brian, right?” 

Frank hopes he’s not smiling too much like an idiot, but for some reason it means a lot that Gerard is learning his life even if he’s not ready to be a part of it. At least, not in the way that Frank would really like. 

“Yeah,” Frank says softly. 

Gerard shifts on his feet, his paint covered hand reaching back up to his hair. Frank feels that tug in his chest that always comes around whenever he’s with Gerard. He sets the box and container on the desk, careful not to knock off any of the stacks of sketchbooks and pens, before reaching up to pull Gerard’s hand out of his hair. 

“You’ve got paint all in your hair,” he explains, his voice embarrassingly breathless. 

Gerard nods and Frank doesn’t miss the way his eyes shift down to Frank’s lips. But then Gerard clears his throat and turns to the desk, pulling Frank’s jacket he left the other night off the back of the chair. “You, um, forgot this. I should have given it to Mikey. It’s way too cold out there to not have a jacket on. But I didn’t realize that the party was last weekend, so I forgot, but Mikey said something about working with you now or that he’s going to be and--”

“Gee,” Frank cuts off his rambling, grinning a bit and reaching for the jacket. “Thanks.”

Gerard’s brows furrow as his grip tightens on the jacket. Frank looks up at him, confused. “Why’d you leave?” Gerard asks. 

Frank knows what he means, but he’s stalling. “What?”

Gerard sighs and looks down at his shoes, still holding onto the jacket. “Why did you leave that night? You could have stayed.”

“I didn’t…” Frank trails off, because he didn’t  _ know _ . 

Gerard looks back up at Frank, eyes still a bit nervous but Frank sees the sureness in them. “You could have stayed if you wanted.”

Frank looks over Gerard’s shoulder, at the faces on the painting and how brave they are. How they’re not afraid to show what they feel, and Frank doesn’t think that sort of bravery should only exist on canvas. So, he tugs on the jacket hard enough for Gerard to stumble forward and into Frank’s arms.

And then he tilts his face up and kisses Gerard. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Hey Mr.DJ ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10659) is just one of those feel good fics that reads like a romcom from the mid-2000s. And the podfic is great too!
> 
> [Old Scars/Future Hearts ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4731407) is an intense read, but it’s really beautiful. Please mind the tags. There really hasn’t been too many fics that I’ve read that have left me so emotionally spent like this fic. 
> 
> [ Girlfriend ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/724930) was brought up in the BBB server, so now I’m sharing it with you. There really isn’t enough Travie fics out there, but I guess this will hold me over until I find some more. Also, I just really love how Pete is written in this.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Potential triggers: there's mention of past use of psychedelic drugs and a character also has an anxiety attack on screen.

Frank’s never given much thought to kissing. He liked it-- yeah, obviously-- but he sorta always thought of it as a step to get to the more fun things. And it wasn’t like anyone ever slowed him down to show him just how  _ good _ kissing was. 

With Gerard, Frank doesn’t feel that antsy feeling he usually felt in the pit of his stomach. That one that always made him too aware of how long he was taking to undo someone’s bra or shove his hand down someone’s pants. There isn’t this shakiness in his hands that made them keep roaming over Gerard. He feels grounded to where he was standing, feels this calm wash over him. 

Maybe calm wasn’t the right word, but he just feels like this place--this spot here with Gerard, with his hands cradling his face, fingertips tickled by Gerard’s incredibly long eyelashes--this is where he is supposed to be. He doesn’t feel the need to go for a walk outside because his lungs felt hungry for fresh air. He doesn’t need to fill his mind with loud music. Doesn’t need his hands to fiddle with cigarettes and lighters.

He feels fulfilled, like he doesn’t need to be anywhere but here. Or anyone but himself. 

Gerard pulls away, his lips wet and cheeks pink. He presses his hand to his heart and shivers. “It’s beating so fast.”

Frank hears a sympathetic sound escape his throat and he pulls Gerard’s hand off his chest so he can place it on his own. “So’s mine.”

Gerard’s nervous expression melts into relief and he smiles, shy and somehow sly at the same time. It tugs at Frank’s stomach, makes him want to pull him down on the bed so that he can wrap himself into Gerard and not come up for air. 

“I used to be good at this,” Gerard whispers, walking backwards and pulling Frank with him by the hem of his shirt. 

“You seem to be doing ok,” Frank teases as the bed hits the back of Gerard’s knees and he sits on the edge of the bed. Frank cups Gerard’s jaw, taking the moment to savor the way his thumb traces the curve of it, before leaning down to kiss him again. 

Gerard kisses back with intent this time, opening his mouth for Frank. Frank all but crawls into Gerard’s lap, grinning when he makes a surprised squeak and hurries to press his hands to Frank’s back so he wouldn’t topple over onto the floor. 

Frank’s fingers find themselves in Gerard’s hair, rubbing the greasy strands between his fingertips to savor the texture. To take inventory of everything he hasn’t learned about Gerard yet. He smiles against Gerard’s lips when he feels the dried clumps of paint in his hair. 

Gerard’s good about kissing any teasing off his mouth though, and nips at his bottom lip just for good measure. It makes Frank feel hot all over by how much Gerard seems to already know him, but is still eager to learn more. He’s a quick study, finds the sensitive spot underneath Frank’s jaw quickly, learns that tickling the roof of his mouth with his tongue makes him shiver, makes Frank keen when he dips down to lick the curve of Frank’s collarbone. 

And when Frank coaxes Gerard onto his back, he doesn’t slide his hands up Gerard’s shirt which he probably would have done by now. He just shifts them so that they’re laying facing each other and lets their kisses get lazy and sloppy until Gerard pulls back with a grin. “Do you want to stay the night?”

Frank nods. “Yeah.”

*

It should be awkward to sit at the Way kitchen table with Gerard and Mikey over takeout containers, but Mikey doesn’t give him any weird looks even though Gerard is clearly sporting a hickey on his neck. 

Watching the Way brothers interact is so weird sometimes that Frank feels like he shouldn’t be in the same room as them, like he’s intruding or something. And he’s not exactly sure if that’s just a sibling thing since he grew up as an only child, but he doesn’t think Ray is like this with his brothers. Frank’s pretty sure it’s because of how they were as kids. He can picture the two of them pretending it was them against the world, and then growing up to find out that it was more or less the truth. 

Frank can’t help but think about childhoods lately. He always thought it was a cliched joke he always pictured with a Freudian looking therapist and a couch. But the further he gets from his childhood, the more he finds ties back to it. Like how he still can’t eat canned green beans without feeling nauseous because of that time his mom made him sit at the kitchen table and finish his plate. Or the way he feels all warm and fuzzy whenever “Wish You Were Here” comes on the radio because it reminds him of long car rides with the windows rolled down in the middle of summer. 

It makes him think about his mom and how she tried to do the best she could, even though sometimes it wasn’t good enough. And for a while, when he was a teenager maybe, he was so angry about those instances. He felt like he was missing out on something because he didn’t have a dad to take him to baseball games or he’d get annoyed that he couldn’t get the newest Gameboy that all his friends were getting because it was just his mom supporting them. He thinks of all the times she shouted at him, the times she lost her temper and at the time he didn’t know she was just stretched too thin--and even though he knows that now, the lasting impression of his mother’s red face with tears in her eyes still haunts him. Makes him feel broken whenever he thinks too long about that. 

He thinks about the times that his mom leaned on him too much whenever some guy would screw her over. The times he felt the consequences whenever some loser she dated emptied their bank account before disappearing. He still remembers the embarrassment of failing gym class because they couldn’t afford tennis shoes or how he’d hide in the bathroom because he didn’t want to face the lunch line where he couldn’t pay the lunch ladies the dollar he owed for lunch. 

He always thought those kinds of things didn’t really impact him as an adult, but he sees it creep out here and there. And he wonders if that’s what’s happening with the Way brothers. If they’re so dependent on each other because that’s how they grew up. And Frank doesn’t see anything wrong with that, except for the way that Mikey’s careful demeanor slips whenever Gerard looks away or how Gerard’s shoulders sag when Mikey gets up to put the leftovers into the fridge. 

“You and Mikey are close,” Frank says when they’re back downstairs and Mikey is gone for his shift at the diner. 

“Yeah, we’ve always been like that,” Gerard says, sorting through some DVDs like he’s trying to decide what to watch.

“You worry about him?” Frank asks carefully. 

Gerard’s hands still and he sighs. “I rely too much on him, I know that. But there’s--”

“There’s me,” Frank says, wincing a bit at how that sounds now that it’s out. 

The heaviness of Gerard’s silence is weighing on Frank so much that he’s not sure if he can draw in a full breath. But then he says, “I don’t--”

“And there’s Pete,” Frank hurries, to try and save this awkwardness, “He cares about you too, so does Patrick. And the guys at work ask about you and--”

“Please stop,” Gerard says, setting the stack of DVDs back on the bookshelf. He won’t turn to face Frank, but he’s sure Gerard’s biting his lip the way he does whenever he gets nervous about something. 

“I’m just saying,” Frank says gently, keeping his voice quiet so that Gerard can pretend to not hear it if he wants to, “that there are people who care about you. You don’t have to feel alone.”

Gerard sighs and says, equally as quiet, “No, I just have to feel like I’m letting everyone down.”

Frank didn't leave that night even though he probably should have. The heaviness of the conversation didn’t get lifted by them watching cheesy zombie movies like Frank would have liked. And when Gerard tentatively slid down into the covers to drift to sleep, Frank felt like he had to keep his distance. 

But the next morning had been a little better when he woke up to his alarm and found Gerard laying his head on his chest. He was late to work because he kept hitting snooze on his alarm so that he could run his fingers through Gerard’s hair and listen to his steady and even breathing. 

“You look like shit,” Ray informs him when he slips past Brian’s office with the hopes that he didn’t notice his tardiness. 

“Wow, thanks,” Frank says dryly, stealing a handful of sliced peppers since he hadn’t had time to eat anything on his way out of Gerard’s. 

“Well,” Ray says brightly, “What do you think about going to see Tittyfuckers for your birthday?”

Frank laughs at that because Ray is such a fucking good friend. He knows that he has such a soft spot for bands with shitty names. “Obviously, and we can go to that weird little food stand that probably is violating every healthcode out there.”

“For you? Anything,” Ray promises. 

And yeah, ok, that does make him feel better because he hasn’t been to a show in...well, since he and Gerard started hanging out. His conversation with Hambone and Ray come back to haunt him, but he’s pretty content to ignore it. 

Because he knows that feeling he had when he kissed Gerard meant something. 

*

“So you should keep your change book on you at all times,” Frank says to Mikey as they get into Frank’s car. “And you want to break the bigger bills whenever you get back to the shop because there’s nothing worse than someone not giving you a tip because you don’t have change.”

Mikey nods, but he’s also not really paying attention. He’s going through Frank’s CDs again and stealing his cigarettes. But Frank’s learned that Mikey likes to look like he doesn’t care, when he really does. He knows that this job really matters to him and Gerard, so Frank isn’t going to make him feel awkward by calling him out on anything. 

Well, except when he walks up to their next house with a cigarette still in between his lips because, wow, that’s sorta dumb. 

Mikey just shrugs because somehow he lucked out and got some stoner who answered the door. Frank marvels at Mikey’s luck sometimes. Especially whenever Pete or Gerard will tell him about the stupid shit that Mikey’s done and has just gotten away with. And there’s the whole ‘not looking both ways before crossing the street’ thing that he does and still hasn’t gotten ran over. 

Which sorta startles Frank into a realization. “Mikey?”

“Hmm?” 

“Do you have a car?”

Frank realizes that he should have probably asked that before he got Mikey the job, but he hadn’t really considered it. He’s well aware that the Way brothers have him tied around their fingers, but fuck. 

“Yeah,” Mikey says, and shrugs like it’s not a big deal. But Frank sees the Thursday CD shake in his hand. 

“Have you driven since…?” Frank lets his voice trail off. 

He sees Mikey shake his head out of his peripheral and sighs before pulling into a gas station parking lot. Mikey perks up like he’s about to get a blue slushie, but then deflates when he sees Frank get out of the car only to come to his side of the car. 

Frank opens Mikey’s passenger door and Mikey narrows his eyes at him. “What are you doing?”

“I’m not doing anything,” Frank says, “But you’re going to drive us back to the shop.”

Mikey’s good at hiding his anxiety, but Frank thinks that maybe he’s been hanging around Pete and Gerard enough to see the slight flicker of fear in his eyes.

“Come on,” Frank says gently, a tone that he doesn’t like to use much for Mikey because Mikey’s the type of guy that would find it patronizing. But he needs the coddling for this, Frank can tell, and he’s relieved when Mikey nods and gets out of the car so he can get into the driver’s seat. 

Frank slides into Mikey’s abandoned seat and clicks his seatbelt into place. “Alright, you know the way back?”

Mikey nods, clicking his seatbelt in and then sitting back in his seat to stare at the steering wheel. “It’s not like we were in the car with them or anything when it happened.”

“It’s still scary,” Frank offers, because he’s not sure if he’d be cool with driving again if his mom was in...and he’s just going to stop thinking about that. “Take your time, Brian will understand.”

Mikey nods and they just sit in the car for a bit. Mikey smokes another one of Frank’s cigarettes and tells him about this time that Gerard accidentally dyed his roots teal because he forgot he needed to bleach the black out of his hair. “He’s sorta dumb like that, so good luck”, he adds when Frank’s laughter dies down a bit. And then he talks about this movie that he saw with Pete the other night and how he’s pretty sure that he’s never going to get sick of vampire movies. 

And finally when he’s apparently done stalling, Mikey shifts the car into drive and pulls out of the gas station parking lot like it’s not a big deal at all.

*

Frank wakes up to something sharp digging into his side. 

He blinks a few times when he hears this raspy noise against his ear, and it takes him a minute to realize it’s Gerard. He reaches down to pry Gerard’s tight grip from his side and turns so he’s facing Gerard. 

“Hey,” Frank says, trying to stay calm even though the wild look on Gerard’s face is freaking him out. He leans his forehead against Gerard’s and cradles the back of his neck, stroking the skin there softly. “Gee, shh, you’re ok.”

Gerard opens his mouth to say something, but all Frank gets out of it is a bunch of rushed breaths and whimpers. Frank keeps rubbing the back of Gerard’s neck, keeping his movement slow and easy even though he’s worried he’s not doing this right. 

Frank remembers that time he did mushrooms with Hambone and he had a panic attack because he got paranoid as fuck and thought everyone was watching them. Ray had been with them and pulled Frank’s head down into his lap and stroked his hair until the anxiety had passed. He hoped that that would work for Gerard too. 

He keeps saying nonsense that’s easy to spew in the warm glow of Gerard’s basement, where it’s safe to be vulnerable. Things like  _ I won’t let anything happen to you  _ and  _ you can get through this, you’re stronger than you think _ . And when Gerard’s breathing gets less scary, he kisses his forehead and tells him how good he’s doing, that this scary feeling is going to pass any minute. 

Frank doesn’t make him talk about it when he’s gotten him to calm down, he just shifts them so that he’s laying on his back and has Gerard laying his head on his chest. He keeps his breathing slow and steady, hoping Gerard will try to match his rhythm and it’ll lull him back to sleep. 

When Frank wakes up again, it’s after noon and Gerard is bringing down two plates of pancakes. 

Frank sits up and grins. “Oh? I get pancakes in bed?”

Gerard smiles shyly and plops down on the bed, spilling a bit of syrup on the covers, before handing Frank a plate. “There’s no butter--you can’t have dairy, right? You said that, didn’t you?”

Frank nods and presses a kiss to the corner of Gerard’s mouth even though he probably has morning breath, but Gerard doesn’t look like he minds. The pancakes are clearly the kind that go in the toaster, but Frank is still touched by the gesture. 

“I’m sorry about last night,” Gerard says when Frank’s finished a pancake. 

Frank frowns at his fork and says, “Hang on. Are these apologetic pancakes?”

Gerard bites his lip and shrugs. “Sorta?”

Frank groans and sets his plate down in his lap. “Listen, you don’t have to be sorry about last night. It’s not your fault, you didn’t--”

“Ok, that right there? Stop,” Gerard says, closing his eyes like he’s literally in pain and it makes Frank’s mouth snap shut. “I don’t want...fuck, I don’t know how to do this, Frank.”

“Do what?” Frank asks, even though he has an idea. He’s not really playing dumb though, he’s not sure if this is just them hanging out and Gerard kissing him because there’s no one else and--

“Dating or whatever,” Gerard mutters, “I mean, it’s not even dating is it? I don’t think you can call it dating if we’ve never been on a date.”

“I think we can call it whatever we want,” Frank says, the over passionate part of him crawling out of his heart and going up for bat.

Gerard scoffs. “You don’t even…you don’t even  _ know _ me. Why the fuck--”

“What?” Frank demands. 

Gerard narrows his eyes. “You don’t. How could you? I can’t take you to a comic book store and show you all my favorites. I can’t go out to a restaurant with you and show you how much of a sweet tooth I have. I can’t go to the movies with you so you can see if I’m the type of person who finishes the popcorn before the previews. I can’t...I can’t go to a show with you, can’t let you see me drop my walls because they’re  _ always _ up. How can you know me when I’m too scared, all the time?”

Frank’s head feels like it’s spinning because these are all really good points, but he doesn’t want Gerard to be arguing against them. Yeah, this is new and maybe Frank is a little too involved already, but when the fuck did he ever do anything half assed? 

“You can just tell me,” Frank says, and he knows it sounds dumb the moment it escapes his mouth. 

Gerard huffs. “It shouldn’t...I want to  _ show _ you.”

“Why does it have to be all or nothing, I don’t--”

“Because it’s not fair to you,” Gerard aruges. 

“Don’t I get a say in that?” Frank challenges, grabbing his pack of cigarettes off the nightstand and lighting up. All the stillness that he usually felt around Gerard dissipates and he suddenly wants to be anywhere but under the fairylights. 

“You don’t even know what you want,” Gerard says, “You’re just...latching onto things. Onto people.”

Frank gets up from the bed and tosses his unused cigarette into a cup of soda from last night. He grabs his jacket and shoves his feet into his shoes. “For the record,” Frank spits out, lacing up his shoes, “You don’t get to be all sad and pitiful about being alone when you’re pushing me away.”

“I want to be alone,” Gerard mutters, staring at Frank’s abandoned pancakes instead of his face. 

“Yeah,” Frank scoffs. “Keep telling yourself that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [With Hands Tied Twice ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3347555) is a beautiful poly fic where the Ways are involved with Grant and Kristan. The fic is mostly about Kristan/Grant/Gerard, but Lynz is in the background. I just really love poly fics when they’re done right, and this one really hits every mark for me. 
> 
> [Ten Rules for Looking After Mikey Way ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/207569) is just really fucking cute. Writing the Mikey in this fic sorta made me think of this, so I thought I’d share it. 
> 
> Sorry for the small list this week, I’ve been reading things not bandom lately and I’ve honestly been in a bit of a funk. Anyone else feel really burnt out and out of it after the holidays?


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I know it’s been a bit. But I’ve been really struggling with my anxiety and the last thing I wanted to do while in the thick of it was write a fic about anxiety. Sometimes it works to play on something that’s personal, but other times it just makes things worse. So, this fic sorta fell on the back burner while I got my shit together. Good news is that I reached out to my doctor and got started on some medication. Anyway, all that is to say I appreciate if you’re back for the new chapter. Thanks for waiting while I got my brain sorted out <3

Frank hasn’t been a great friend the last few days, he knows that. And it’s eating away at him, but he also has an ugly bitterness in him that’s morphed into this monster who’ll lash out at anyone who tries to make him feel better. 

He had all but shut the door in Hambone’s face when he came by with Mortal Kombat and a six pack, opting to hide out under his covers all day. Hambone must have told Ray what happened, because Ray tried calling instead of showing up, but that just made him easier to ignore. Even Brian tried to call him, and Brian usually tried to stay out of everyone’s ‘emotional bullshit’. And Frank had been tempted to pick up the phone just to hear him ramble with an awkward attempt to make Frank feel better, but he ignored the call as well. 

The worst though, was how Frank had treated Pete. 

“Mikey told me to tell you that you’re being stupid,” Pete had said Saturday afternoon, sitting across the table from him. 

Frank nodded and opened another letter that told him his poem didn’t get accepted into their anthology. “Yeah, thanks,” he muttered, picking up another envelope. 

Pete sighed heavily. “Frankie, what are you doing?”

“I like to store them up and open them all at once. That way I don’t have to spread the rejection over days,” Frank had explained, ripping the envelope. 

“I meant with Gerard,” Pete clarified, “Though we should maybe talk about the poetry thing too.”

“Nothing to talk about,” Frank said as he scanned the letter and saw ‘we’re sorry to inform you…’

“Frank--”

“Drop it, Pete,” Frank said, “I’m not interested, ok? I’m fucking tired.”

“Tired of what?” Pete asked softly. 

Frank shoved the papers and ripped envelopes at Pete. “Of getting rejected. I’m sick of trying and not getting anywhere. I’m just, just _stuck_ and I feel like I’m wasting my time or youth or whatever the fuck makes our parents say these are the good years. There is _nothing_ good about how I feel.”

Pete pursed his lips and he started to stack the papers on the table. “Alright, so what are you going to do? Stop trying?”

“I mean, maybe?”

Pete shrugged. “Yeah, ok. So you’re going to live in your mom’s house forever while you deliver pizzas and you’re just never going to put your heart out there again? Sounds like a good plan there, Frankie.”

“Hey, man, fuck you. Ok? You run a _diner_ in Jersey, and not even the good part of Jersey that people care about. You left Chicago because you were sad. And I don’t know how running away is any better than what I’m doing.”

Pete had looked like someone just kicked his puppy before retreating into the kitchen. And Frank had sighed heavily before packing up, not interested in sticking around for Patrick’s wrath. 

So Frank’s just been driving around because he doesn’t want to be stuck in his childhood bedroom that seems to be mocking him for killing their childhood dreams of being _somebody_. If fifteen year old Frank could see twenty-three year old Frank, he’d probably kick his own ass for being such a complete loser. 

And now that the anger of the whole Gerard situation has simmered down, he feels like a complete idiot for being such a jackass to his friends. He knows that they’ll forgive him, but he’s also still immature enough to be putting off an apology. So until he grows the balls, he’s content to drive around Jersey with his CDs and cigarettes. 

The thing is that Frank’s been putting off a lot of things, and maybe there’s some truth in what Gerard said about him latching onto things and people. It’s so he can focus on something other than his own bullshit. Like how he really needs to figure out his next move with all this poetry bullshit. The end of the line is getting closer to him, and he keeps looking in the other direction like he can’t see it. But it’s there, and Frank feels sick to his stomach with the realization that he’s going to have to start considering other options. 

There was one time where Frank had gotten really down about a rejection letter and started looking at jobs online and in the paper, and a part of him just died at the listings. Everything seemed to box him into a cubicle with grey walls and harsh lighting. And there’s this prideful part of him that thinks he’s entitled to a decent job because he did everything he was supposed to. He finished high school, got into a good college, and earned a fucking degree. He ate the shitty microwaved noodles for weeks on end, drank his fair share of shitty beer, and all but mainlined coffee to finish papers. He went to college like everyone told him to do since he was a kid, but now it’s like he’s being punished for it. 

But something has to give. He knows that Pete’s right. He can’t just give up, even if he wanted to, it’s not really in Frank’s nature to not fight for something. And apparently the universe isn’t willing to let Frank just give up either, because when he pulls up to his house, Mikey is sitting on his front steps. 

“I was wondering if you could give me a lift home,” Mikey says, getting up slowly and eyeing Frank with hesitancy. It’s unnerving to see Mikey looking at him with something other than boredom or amusement. 

“You have a car,” Frank points out. 

“I walked here,” Mikey says, “I like walking.”

And yeah, so does Frank. But not at ass o’clock at night, though he’s not stupid and knows this is some set up by the youngest Way. “Call Pete.”

Mikey’s eyes narrow. “Frank.”

“What?” Frank sighs, digging into his pocket for his cigarettes. “You’re brother made it clear that he doesn’t want me around.”

“My brother is stupid,” Mikey says, “I told you that.”

“Yeah well dying your hair blue and kicking out someone who might give a damn about you are two very different things,” Frank scoffs. 

“Might?” Mikey challenges. 

“Just…” Frank starts, fumbling with his lighter and getting more agitated at the fact that it won’t hold a flame for him to light his cigarette, “Just go home, Mikey.”

“Yeah, sure, take me home,” Mikey says. 

Frank tosses the broken lighter to the pavement, “I’m not your fucking--I can’t fix your brother for you and I can’t help you with your shit either. I’ve got my own mess to handle and--”

“Don’t you think we know that?” Mikey fires back, “Everyone has shit that they have to deal with. Pete’s depressed, Patrick’s pissed off, Gerard won’t leave the house, and I...I’m some level of fucked that I can’t find a word to describe it.”

Frank’s throat goes dry, because Mikey’s never talked about himself like this. He’s been giving Frank clues, sure, and Frank’s starting to learn to read between the lines with Mikey. But he’d never expect Mikey to just come out and say that he’s hurting too. 

“So that’s it, then?” Frank asks, voice softer than he’d like, “You think we all deserve each other because we’re all fucked up?”

Mikey snorts and reaches into his own pocket to pull out a lighter. He holds it out and lights the cigarette still hanging out of Frank’s mouth. “Something like that. It’s better than being alone and fucked, right?”

*

“I know I was a dick to you, and I didn’t mean it,” Frank says, settling himself at the bar where Pete is wiping down menus. 

Pete doesn’t say anything, he just nods and keeps his eyes on the menus. 

Frank sighs, fuck. “I get all weird when it comes to shit like this. I know I put off this like...agressive”--Pete snorts-- “Shut the fuck up, whatever. I’m kind of a little bitch when it comes to my feelings, alright? I’m a goddamn poet.”

Pete laughs for real that time and shakes his head. “This is the worst apology I’ve ever heard.”

“I’m better at writing,” Frank offers, “But writing you an apology poem sounded a little too emo for me.”

“I would have liked it,” Pete shrugs, dunking his washcloth in the bucket of sanitizer. 

“Of course you would,” Frank teases, “You’re the king of emos.”

Pete grimances at that, but there’s a little pleased smile tugging at his lips and Frank knows that they’re going to be alright. 

Patrick comes out of the kitchen with a tray full of cookies. His eyes catch Frank’s, and they narrow before he looks over at Pete. “Can you try these? I’m not sure if I put too much cinnamon in them.”

Pete sets the washcloth down and wipes his hands on his jeans before taking a cookie. He blows on it dramatically before taking a bite and then Frank grins as Pete’s eyes roll in the back of his head. “Trick, these are orgasmic.”

Patrick’s cheeks tinge pink and he smiles his stupid happy smile that always comes out around Pete. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Pete says, reaching out for another cookie. 

Patrick snorts and pulls the tray away before Pete can grab a third. He looks over at Frank and holds his head up a little higher. “No orgasmic cookies for you,” he says, before turning around and heading back into the kitchen.

Pete chuckles and Frank tries not to pay too much attention to the knot that just formed in his stomach. 

“Patrick’s a bit too protective,” Pete says, “He’ll be fine after I tell him about your sorry ass apology.”

Frank feels the knot loosen a bit, but he knows it’s going to be sticking around for a while. “Yeah, ok.”

Pete holds out the second cookie he’d taken from Patrick. “Here, cookies always make things better.”

*

Frank’s sweating more than he thinks he ever has, which is probably not the best thing to happen when he’s trying to win back his sorta-boyfriend. He tilts his head down to smell his pits and instantly jerks up, yeah not good. But he’s already standing outside the Way house with a box of pizza and stupid hopefullness. 

“This is lame, even for you,” Hambone had said as Frank laid down another pepperoni. 

And, he knew that writing an apology on a pizza was lame, but he thought that maybe it gave it charm. “It’s the first thing I could think of,” he replied, finishing off the ‘Y’.

“This is the first thing you thought of?” Ray asked, frowning, “How did you ever get laid in the past?”

So Frank’s rocking back on his heels debating on whether or not he could just set the pizza on the porch and ring the doorbell before running off like the little chicken-shit he is. But, that’s probably not a great idea if he doesn’t want a Mikey Way showing up to his house in the middle of the night again. 

He sighs and reaches out to press the doorbell. 

And he almost bursts out in hysterical laughter when the little dinosaur head sticks out of the door, hitting him in the shin again. It’s mouth is filled with bills and he hears Gerard say softly, “You can keep the change.”

“Gee,” Frank says, because he can’t help it. 

There’s a pause, then, “You’re not the chinese food delivery.”

“No,” Frank says hesitantly, “But I do have pizza.”

Another pause. “Why?”

“Because I’m an idiot?” Frank asks, shifting on his feet because this is harder than he thought it would be. His cheeks feel like they’re on fire and he’s convinced his shirt is soaked in sweat now despite it being the end of October. 

“Idiocracy calls for pizza?” 

Frank chuckles nervously, “Yeah, apparently.”

The dinosaur is still pressed against Frank’s shin like it’s mocking him and Frank just really wants to shove open the door and kiss Gerard like one of those stupid Lifetime movies that his mom watches. But he can’t rush Gerard, he’s starting to realize that. He can’t fix whatever is broken with Gerard and he’s going to have to seriously learn some patience. 

He’s willing to do that for Gerard though. He’s willing to do anything for Gerard. 

Which is easier said than done, because this new found need for patience is proving to be quite the test as he waits for the dinosaur to leave him and be replaced by Gerard opening the door. When he was younger, he remembers having a really bad issue with patience. He’d get so worked up over the littlest thing, his blocks not fitting the way he wanted or his paints mixing into an ugly color because he didn’t want to take his time to wait for things to sort themselves out. His mom used to make him stand on one leg so that he’d be forced to focus on balancing and calm himself down. It was something stupid she’d learned from a yoga instructor she’d dated, but Frank can see what she was trying to get at now. 

He’s not about to stand on one leg, but the sentiment is there and he takes a deep breath to wait. 

“Frank, I can’t,” Gerard whispers, quietly like he never wanted Frank to hear it to begin with. 

And this isn’t how things are supposed to go. Frank’s seen enough romcoms with his mom to know that this is a big gesture. And in the movies, big gestures always work. But he can feel his stomach hollowing out and his knees go weak. “Oh,” he manages to say and he thinks he might have shouted it because his ears are ringing. 

“I just…” Gerard starts, but then the dinosaur head snaps back inside and Frank can hear the soft padding of Gerard running away, probably wearing those stupid batman pajamas and something in Frank just crumples. 

But he’s not going to stand here with a pizza and cry over a guy, so he sets it down on the porch and hurries to his car. It feels oddly like deja vu, him sitting in his car and waiting for Gerard to step outside, but he knows he’s not going to see Gerard on the porch this time. 

*

It doesn’t hit him until he takes an elbow to the face on his birthday at the Tittyfuckers’ show. 

“Jesus, Frank!” Ray exclaims, no doubt getting bent out of shape over the blood gushing out of Frank’s nose but Frank can feel his lips stretching in a smile. Because he finally _gets it_. 

“I know what I want to do,” Frank says, knowing that his words are slurring from the beers he’s been having all night. 

“What you want is to follow me to the bathroom so I can fix your face,” Ray frowns, pulling on Frank’s arm. 

Frank goes easily with Ray, his bones all jelly from the alcohol and being tossed about in the pit. His blood feels like it’s finally singing after being shoved in the silence for too long and he can feel his heart slowly start to thread shaky stitches over the wound Gerard left. 

Ray swears when they get into the bathroom and finds that there’s no paper towel dispensers. 

“‘S better for the environment,” Frank points out, leaning against the sink and really getting a good look at himself in the mirror. His face is a mess, everything is sticky and shining red like he’s some horror movie extra and the eyeliner smeared down to his cheekbones isn’t helping his cause either. 

Ray huffs and takes off the flannel he had over his t-shirt and wets it under the sink before taking Frank’s chin in his soft hand--too soft for someone who plays guitar all the time--and dabbing at the blood with the shirt. 

“Why don’t you take off the other shirt too?” Frank teases and Ray rolls his eyes. 

“Yeah, we’re not drunk enough for that, buddy,” Ray grins, no doubt thinking about that _one_ time they messed around at some party. There had been lots of tequila involved that night, which has always made Frank a bit slutty. 

“Yeah I know,” Frank says, feeling himself sober up a bit at the thought, “I wouldn’t be a great lay anyway. I’m too sad.”

Ray tsks and leans down to kiss the top of Frank’s head before taking the shirt away and rinsing it out in the sink. A couple of guys come in, but they don’t really seem to think the scene happening at the sink is all that concerning. It’s not the first time someone got a bloody nose at a show. 

“What did Mikey say?” Ray asks softly, bringing the shirt back to Frank’s nose. 

Mikey had been a great friend even though Frank had one horrifying thought of Mikey ignoring him because Gerard didn’t want him anymore. But he hadn’t. He’d shown up to work the next day and handed Frank a pack of cigarettes and a blue slushie. 

“Thanks, Mikes,” Frank had said, trying not to get choked up. 

“My brother is an idiot,” Mikey responded, patting his shoulder, then heading over to help open up the shop so that Frank didn’t have to feel any more awkward.

“Nothing I don’t already know,” Frank answers Ray, wincing when Ray’s ministrations make his nose flare up in pain. 

“Sorry,” Ray apologizes, and Frank wonders which part he’s apologizing for. But then Ray asks, “What do you want to do?”

“Huh?”

Ray grins. “You came out of the pit with this wild look on your face and you said you know what you wanted to do.”

“Oh, right,” Frank says, smiling again, “I want to write a book.”

Ray narrows his eyes, “A book?”

“Yeah,” Frank says, feeling that spark of excitement rumble in his heart again, “If those fuckers don’t want me in their stupid literary bullshit, I’ll just write my own. You know that thing, right? The whole, if you can’t do it, teach or whatever?”

Ray laughs. “I think you’re a bit too drunk for all these revelations. I don’t know if you’re trying to tell me you want to write a poetry book or teach.”

Frank snorts. “I’d be a shit teacher, I didn’t even go to my own classes.”

“Bullshit,” Ray says fondly, rinsing out the shirt again before swiping at the eyeliner on Frank’s face. 

“What do you think?” Frank asks, because it’s important to him that Ray thinks it’s a good idea. Ray’s always been Frank’s smart friend, his sort of voice of reason who never led Frank astray. He probably trusts Ray with more than he even realizes, and that’s not as scary as it probably should be. 

“I think that it’s about damn time,” Ray smiles. 

Frank’s glad he’s got enough beer in him to giggle stupidly with joy, that the black cloud that’s been following him the last few days has been pushed away for at least a night so he can enjoy this moment. This feeling of finally coming to a decision, and the feeling of it being supported. For the first time in a while, he thinks he can stand without wobbling. 

A loud moan erupts in the stalls behind them and Frank’s giggles turn into full laughter as Ray tugs Frank away from the sink and back out into the smokey club. 

“That could have been us!” Frank teases, shouting against Ray’s ear over the heavy music. 

“Let’s get you home, Romeo,” Ray laughs, “You’ve got a book to write.”

*

So Frank’s been keeping himself busy with spending time at the library to learn about self-publishing or at Pete and Patrick’s diner writing. And it’s as if some spark went off in his head, because the words are just _pouring_ out of him. 

“It’s the heartbreak,” Pete had told him, “It’s always the best thing for art.”

And Frank just snorted as he watched Mikey readjust his shirt as he came out of the bathroom Pete just left. “Yeah, I’m sure your art is just suffering right now.”

When he’s not at the diner or library, he’s at work because he needs the extra shifts. The problem with that is that he has to work with Kyle more. 

Frank would have stabbed his eyes out with olives if it weren’t for Hambone causally sticking post-its to the back of Kyle’s shirt everytime he walked by. And that helps, so does Ray’s steady texts of commentary on how shitty the venue’s system is he’s at. 

He does wish he had Mikey to drive around with tonight though, because Mikey would have stuck in any other CD besides Gerard’s Smashing Pumpkins’ CD. And Frank is feeling morbid as fuck tonight apparently, because he takes the long way back to the pizza shop after delivering his last pizza just so he can keep listening to the album. 

It’s one of those albums that really puts Frank in a nostalgic mood. Especially the song Luna, for whatever fucked up reason the lyrics are really slicing into Frank’s heart tonight and he can’t help but think of Gerard and the rejection of what _could_ have been coupled with this strong sense of wanting to be a child again. 

There’s this memory that comes to the front of Frank’s mind every now and then, particularly when he’s feeling low. It’s nothing special, but it’s of him and his mom roller skating in a park. It’s about to storm, and Frank can smell the sweet muskiness, can feel the heaviness of the air in the back of his throat. And he can still feel the way the old, broken asphalt felt under his skates, how it vibrated up his legs and made his bones shake. And he just remembers this sense of calm even though they should have been rushing to get back to the car. 

He’s not sure if they really were carefree about the impending storm, or if it was just Frank’s childish mind telling him that his mom’s got it under control. If she’s not freaking out, he doesn’t need to be either. 

Frank has to sit in the car for a bit when he gets back to the pizza shop because he can’t fucking be teary eyed in front of Kyle. But the heaviness of wanting someone else to carry his load for a bit is so strong, he just wants to take his cues from someone else for a while. 

“Fuck,” Frank breathes, rubbing his face and then looking into the rearview mirror to make sure he really isn’t crying before getting out of the car. 

He’s only got an hour left of Kyle’s bullshit to get through and maybe he and Hambone can get high on his couch or something. That’s something to look forward to. 

What he’s not expecting, though, is to walk into the pizza shop and see Gerard standing in the middle of the lobby with his hands twisting together anxiously. The bell over the door signals Frank’s arrival, causing Gerard to look up with wide eyes that are near tears. 

“Gerard, what are you…” Frank trails off and takes another step inside, noticing Hambone giving him a wink behind the counter before walking further into the kitchen so they can have some privacy. “Are you ok?”

“I’m here,” Gerard says, his voice wobbling and Frank watches with uneasiness as Gerard twists his hands tighter together, “And that’s really scary. But I want to try with you.”

Frank knows this is the part where he says something sweet and they live happily ever after, but he can’t make his mouth move. It’s worse than the first time he’d gotten on stage to sing in front of a crowd with all those eyes on him. There’s only one set of eyes on him now, but they’re the most important. And they’re the ones that are making Frank stay paralyzed in fear. 

Because this could be big. Frank realizes it, seeing Gerard standing here in front of him solidifies it. It’s not just Frank that could get hurt in all of this, Gerard could be shattered. He’s already so fragile, alrighty being held by scotch tape and rusty saftey pins, just seeing him out of his house is jarring. It’s terrifying because Frank’s got this power now, and he’s not sure he really understands what to do with that. 

“Can you please hug me or something?” Gerard asks in the smallest voice that Frank has ever heard. 

Its snaps Frank into action and he’s got an armful of Gerard before he can exhale, hugging him tightly. He can feel Gerard’s heart hammering against his chest and he squeezes tighter to try and stop Gerard from shaking so much. 

He counts Gerard’s heartbeats until they start to slow and he can feel Gerard settle more into his hold. And that pulls at Frank’s heart a bit, once the fear dies down to just a slight pull at the back of his head. Because Gerard feels really good in his arms, and he shifts so that he can press his face into the crook of Gerard’s neck and breathe in the mix of paint fumes and cigarettes, mixed with something sweet that Frank’s not sure exists beyond Gerard. There’s a warmness in having Gerard in his arms that Frank hasn’t felt in a long time, that stillness that he had when he last kissed Gerard. 

All these things that point to one very obvious realization that Frank just wants to push away. Because that’s bigger than what he’s ready for. But the more he thinks about it, thinks about Gerard standing here instead of hiding in his basement, thinks about the brave faces in his painting, thinks about the feeling of being stuck and how that’s been a result of his own fear. 

“I’m falling for you,” Frank whispers against Gerard’s ear, “And that scares me.”

Frank thinks about Mikey telling him that it’s better to be fucked up together than alone, and he hadn’t really thought that hard about it until this moment. Until he whispered his own fear and let it mix with Gerard’s, til he saw how they could weave together and smear like the paint on Gerard’s canvas or string together like words in a poem.

Until he realized fear didn't have to be something ugly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, thanks for reading! It's been a rough few weeks, but I appreciate you all and this fandom. Here's a few fics I've read lately:
> 
> [Just a Matter of Grace ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28623282) is a sweet Frank/Mikey fic that I read recently. Sick fics aren’t usually my thing, but I really loved this one.
> 
> [I Saved My Breakdowns Just For You ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28637016) is the most gut wrenching fic I’ve read in a long time. It’s beautifully written and really left me speechless, you seriously have to read it if you haven’t already. 
> 
> [The Last Place You Look ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1533791) is an odd one, but give it a shot. A little bit ago, I randomly started reading hockey RPF fics and fell down a rabbit hole. So imagine my surprise when a friend of mine tells me there’s a Mikey Way hockey RPF fic fusion thing.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all your wonderful comments in the last chapter. It really means a lot to hear all your encouraging words regarding my anxiety and me taking time to handle my mental health. 
> 
> ALSO! I have to thank Ella, Marble Girl, and Viky on twitter who have created art for this fic! You have no idea how much that makes my heart soar. Please check out these wonderful artists work: [here ](https://twitter.com/copitamonstrual/status/1355608040481959937), [here ](https://twitter.com/glasssmotion/status/1354165481222135808), and [here ](https://twitter.com/youralter/status/1353649883186683905)!

“I’m sorry I missed your birthday,” Gerard breathes, nipping at Frank’s neck. 

“Doesn’t matter,” Frank assures him as he presses Gerard back onto the mattress, leaning forward to press a kiss to the base of his throat, “Promise.”

Gerard hums in agreement, or at least content to put off the conversation for now. Frank smiles against his pale chest that’s heaving up and down. They’d all but ran to Gerard’s house after Hambone rolled his eyes and said he’d cover for Frank. And it took only a moment of looking at Gerard who was still fragile looking outside of his house to know that Frank couldn’t press his luck with trying to get Gerard into his car. 

He’d already been brave enough for one day. 

Once they’d gotten into the house, Gerard’s hands unzipped Frank’s jacket and Frank let it drape down to the floor before huffing a laugh as Gerard pinned him to the front door and kissed him. It was like all the adrenaline of being outside was still coursing through Gerard’s veins and it needed an escape--something Frank was all too willing to help with. 

Their clothes littered across the upstairs as they made their way down to the basement, and Frank wonders what Mikey is going to say when he finds Gerard’s belt on the lamp by the front door or his jeans in the middle of the hallway. But all that is pushed out of his mind when Gerard turns them over so that Frank is the one nestled amongst the Speed Racer pillows and forgotten comic books. 

Frank wiggles around, feeling something jabbing him in the side, and laughs when he finds that it’s one of those lego Star Wars ship replicas--one that Gerard blushes over and shoves to the floor. Frank’s laughter intensifies when he hears the legos shatter and scatter across Gerard’s floor. 

Gerard sits up and looks down horrified, and for a moment Frank seriously thinks Gerard is going to put a stop to this so that he can rebuild his replica. 

“I’ll help you put it back together after,” Frank teases, reaching out to snap the waistband to his boxers. 

“You better,” Gerard grumbles, and Frank just has to sit up and kiss his grumpy mouth. 

Frank isn’t like a sex God or anything, but he’s had enough experiences to know when someone is trying to impress him. And sometimes it really gets him going, like that time some redhead from the Pecan Sandies show arched her back and did some fancy shit with her tongue. But more often than not, it sort of throws Frank out of the mood because he feels like he’s in some cheap porno or something. 

Frank had expected Gerard to be hesitant in bed, but he clearly knows what he wants and he’s not shy about taking it. And it’s not him trying to show off or anything, there’s too many awkward moments--like Gerard accidentally biting Frank’s tongue or having to stop and shift when his leg started cramping up--for this to be an act. 

“Fucking  _ Christ _ ,” Frank bites out when he feels his cock hit the back of Gerard’s throat. 

And every nerve in Frank’s body is screaming at him to close his eyes and just let go, just fucking feel good for once and not make a big deal out of everything. But Frank can’t, he can’t look away from Gerard’s face, he has to take in everything about this moment that should be so meaningless. It’s a fucking blowjob for Christ’s sake--but leave it to Gerard to turn the ordinary into something so mesmorizing. 

He’s never noticed how long Gerard’s lashes are until now when they’re fluttering against his cheekbones, damp from the couple of times Frank’s hit a gag reflex. His cheeks have the loveliest blush where they’re hollowed from sucking Frank off. And his lips, fuck, his lips are red and swollen, wet and Frank can’t help but reach down and trace over them with his fingertips as he feels himself sink in and out of Gerard’s talented mouth. 

It’s too soon to feel that pull at the bottom of his belly, that hot coil twisting tighter and tighter, ready to snap apart at any moment. But Frank can’t stop chasing his orgasm, can’t stop rolling his hips despite Gerard holding him down against the mattress. And he’s so fucking close, his voice is at that embarassingly high and scratchy octave that he  _ knows _ Gerard’s going to laugh about later--when Gerard pulls off and smiles wickedly at him. 

“Oh, you asshole,” Frank groans, trying to buck up against Gerard’s hold on him. He can feel the fire cooling back down, feels his skin break out into cold sweat and flush in sensations that he’s trying to hang onto. “Gee--” but his voice catches in his throat when he feels Gerard hook his thighs over his shoulders and his mouth trails past his balls. “Ok, yeah, that’s good too,” Frank breathes, twisting the sheets in his hands and trying not to think too much about the crumbs getting stuck to his palms. 

He’s pretty sure no one’s had their mouth  _ there _ before, though there was this one drunken hookup where he’s not quite sure what actually happened versus what he dreamed. But he’s sure as fuck doesn’t remember it feeling like this, even in his imagination. There’s something about the duality of Gerard being soft and sweet and then gripping Frank’s thighs and licking into his hole with absolutely no hesitation, that’s so fucking filthy and making Frank’s head spin. 

And Frank feels that same tightness grip him, the white-hot-seeiing-stars tightness that has him biting his lip to keep from sobbing like an idiot. When Gerard pulls away, he cries out something incoherent. 

“Shh,” Gerard kisses against his hip before knee walking up the bed to dig in his nightstand. He pulls out a bag of Cheetos and throws it to the floor before digging some more and finding a bottle of lube and a strip of condoms. Frank untangles his hands from the sheets to take the condoms and rip one open as Gerard yanks off his boxers. Frank’s never really tried to compare himself to anyone else before, but fuck is Gerard big and it makes his muscles tighten in anticipation of being  _ stretched _ . 

But all of Gerard’s work has gotten him more ready than he realizes, because Gerard slips two lube coated fingers inside him easily. He bends himself at a weird angle to kiss Frank, licking into his mouth and Frank sucks on his tongue greedily as Gerard’s fingers fuck into him. He gets a couple of strokes against his prostate-- choking half formed sentences out of his throat--before Gerard pleads, “Tell me you’re ready.”

“Yeah, Gee, come on,” Frank breathes, whimpering when Gerard’s fingers slip out of him. There’s a hilarious moment of Gerard trying to put a condom on with lube slicked fingers and Frank tries to help, but the condom is all slippery now and Frank just groans in frustration before wiping his hands on Gerard’s disgusting sheets and opening a new condom instead of fucking with the slippery one. 

Gerard laughs and kisses Frank, a gesture that’s intimately sweet in the midst of the heat and Frank’s head fills with sugary cotton candy as he kisses the giggles out of Gerard’s mouth. It slows him down, puts himself back in his body instead of sinking in the frenzied passion where he only becomes sensation instead of a solid person. Gerard’s always done that for Frank, put him back in his body and slowed him down to acknowledge everything that’s happening to him--made him find a stillness instead of trying to outrun himself. 

Frank throws his head back into the pillow and watches the ceiling go blurry as his eyes undoubtedly cross when Gerard pushes in, slow and hot. Gerard’s fingers are slick with lube and sweat on his thighs, his blunt nails digging into his feverish skin and he can  _ feel _ the tension ready to snap in Gerard by the way he’s gipping him. Frank wants him to let go, wants to snap that tension like a rubber band and see how much Gerard can get out of his mind. 

“Come on,” Frank whispers, gripping at Gerard’s hair and gasping when Gerard buries his face into Frank’s neck and licks the salty sweat there. “Please.”

He feels a tremor run through Gerard and then he’s moving onto his knees and folding Frank over, pressing the tops of his thighs into his stomach before Gerard snaps his hips forward in a punishing rhythm. Frank can’t look away from Gerard again, can’t let himself miss the way that his soft, pale belly tightens as he thrusts forward or how his chest is the same delicious pink color his cheeks are. He knows he’s not going to last long from how close to the edge he’s been since Gerard wrapped those pretty lips around him, but he tries to drag out this feeling as long as he can. He’s teetering the edge now, tilting over it before hauling himself back and gripping onto Gerard’s shoulders like he’ll keep him here with him. 

“So good, Frankie,” Gerard breathes like he can’t believe this is happening to him. And that fucks with Frank a little, makes his heart jump and he feels himself slip over the edge just a bit further. Because he doesn’t know how long it’s been for Gerard, how long he’s been keeping himself locked in this house without anyone to touch him. How long it’s been since he let himself let go like this, let himself fall into someone else and just get lost for a bit. And it makes Frank’s breath stagger in his throat when he realizes how much Gerard is giving Frank in this moment. 

Frank’s orgasm hits him without additional warning, and he thinks he’s going to shake apart until he’s nothing but scattered bone and tangled emotions painted against Gerard’s soda stained sheets. He feels Gerard tense above him and he forces his eyes to focus on the way Gerard’s eyes slam shut and his mouth hangs open in a silent scream as his whole body tenses and quivers like a bow. 

Frank reaches out to him and cradles his head against his chest, smoothing his greasy hair out of his face and pressing kisses to his forehead and temples as Gerard’s breathing evens back out. 

“Fuck,” Gerard breathes, then laughs, all giggly and bouncing off the walls of Frank’s ribcage, nuzzling against his heart where Gerard belongs. 

*

Frank’s not stupid, but that doesn’t stop him from being hopeful--and ultimately disappointed--when Gerard doesn’t want to leave the house again. 

“Maybe you could lure him out with blowjobs,” Hambone suggests, holding the lighter to the pile of weed sitting on his crinkled beer can. 

Frank’s trying really hard not to think about the fact that they’re in their mid-twenties and still using beer cans to smoke weed. “Yeah, I’m not sure that’s going to work.”

“Get better at sucking dick,” Hambone says on an inhale. 

Frank snorts and takes the can from Hambone. 

It had been really awkward the morning after when he went upstairs to retrieve his pants from the hallway and saw Mikey standing in the kitchen with a jug of orange juice and an unamused expression.

“Um, can you give me a ride to my car?” Frank had asked, quickly stepping into his jeans and zipping up. 

“You know that I called every hospital in the area when I came home to find my brother missing?” Mikey asked in a too casual voice. 

Frank had felt all the color drain out of his face when he realized how horrifying it had to have been for Mikey to come home and find his brother gone from a house he never left. “MIkey, I’m sorry, we should have--”

“Yeah, a text would have been nice,” Mikey agreed, taking a drink from the orange juice. “But then I came back and found clothes all over the place.”

Frank saw Gerard’s pants crumpled on the floor out of the corner of his eyes and he couldn’t help but laugh. 

Mikey grimaced. “I’m not sure what was more disturbing. Thinking my brother had been kidnapped by aliens or something, or hearing the two of you fuck.”

“Kidnapped by aliens?”

Mikey had shrugged and set the orange juice back into the fridge. “It’s Gerard. Where’s your car?”

“I had to close by myself to get Kyle to agree not to tell Brian on you,” Hambone grumbles, cracking open a beer and taking a long drink. 

Frank chuckles, “He’s probably going to tell anyway.”

Not that Brian will really give a fuck. He’ll say something about Frank being irresponsible but he’ll give him a look like he’s proud of him or some shit. 

“Fuck, you’re right,” Hambone sighs, leaning back on his couch and frowning at the beer on his coffee table. And Frank is about to offer to kick his ass in Super Smash Bros, but Hambone asks, “You ever feel guilty for not wanting more?”

Frank’s had a couple of beers by this point and the weed they just smoked isn’t really helping him wrap his mind fully around what Hambone could be getting at. “More of what?”

Hambone moves his arms in a big sweeping gesture. “Everything.”

“I don’t…” Frank starts, then sighs, “I’m not sure I get what you mean.”

“Yeah, of course you don’t, Frankie,” Hambone sighs, reaching out to grab his beer, “You’re always chasing something.”

Frank furrows his brows. “I mean...do you mean that you don’t want anything?”

“It’s not that I don’t want  _ anything _ ,” Hambone says, picking at the tab of his beer. “I’m just saying that I don’t really feel like I’m craving anything. Not like you or Ray. Like your book? That’s fucking sweet, but I don’t really have something like that...and I’m not really upset by that. I’m like, uh, bummed that I don’t want that, you know?”

Frank takes a minute to replay that in his head, then snorts. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with just being happy.”

Hambone nods all determined, like he was arguing his case this whole time instead of dancing around the topic. “Yeah, man, I fucking like working at the shop with you guys. I like driving around in my car and delivering pizzas around the neighborhood. I like coming up with different topping combos or...fuck, you remember that time we shaped the dough to look like a dick?”

Frank laughs and takes a drink of his own beer. Yeah, delivering pizza isn't bad most of the time. 

“And I like my apartment,” Hambone says, gesturing to his small one bedroom apartment. And, it’s a nice place in that it has running water and there’s only roaches in the winter. But he gets what Hambone means. More often, Frank finds himself here if he’s not at the diner or the Way’s. He’s grown used to seeing the mountain of take out containers on Hambone’s coffee table as well as the stacks of DVDs and video games by the television. The near constant smell of weed and cheap incense makes Frank feel at home and whenever he crashes here from drinking too much, the lumpy couch always gives Frank the best sleep of his life. 

“I just see you and Ray working so hard and getting all down on yourselves,” Hambone explains, “And sometimes I wonder if I’m doing things wrong since I don’t feel that.”

Frank bumps his shoulder against Hambone’s. “Nah, you’re doing it the best.” Then when he feels Hambone laugh, he adds, “Except at giving advice.”

“Fuck you,” Hambone says, “Everyone could improve their dick sucking game.”

*

“I need you to take this to our apartment.”

Frank frowns and looks up from his notebook. He had a really nice groove going, but he instantly forgets that when he sees how horrible Patrick looks. 

“What’s going on?” Frank asks, taking the styrofoam takeout container Patrick is handing him. 

“Pete’s in one of his moods,” Patrick says, “I’d...I want to stay home with him but I need to--the diner and Mikey’s working today at Brian’s and--”

“Whoa, hey,” Frank says, getting out of the booth and putting a hand on Patrick’s shoulder, nudging him to sit down in his place. “Take a breather, man, it’s going to be fine. I’ll go check in on him and…” he trails off and looks around the diner. “Are you seriously working alone?”

Patrick just makes a noise that sounds a little too close to a sob for Frank’s liking. 

“Yeah ok,” Frank says, pulling out his phone, “Hang tight.”

*

Half an hour later, Frank is walking up the steps to Pete and Patrick’s apartment. He slips the key that Patrick gave him into the door and walks into the dark apartment. He’s only really had his mom’s breakups as experience, but he figures it’s a good place to start. 

He opens all the blinds to let in some natural light and finds a can or air freshener under the kitchen sink to spray since he can’t really air out the apartment without blasting the heat too. Then he gathers all the cups and random dishes scattered around the living room before lining the forgotten shoes cluttered by the couch over by the door instead. He unpacks the lunch Patrick gave Frank onto a plate and sticks it in the microwave before going to the back of the apartment in search of Pete. 

The first room he opens is clearly Patrick’s because it’s stuffed with random instruments and the walls are lined with shelves and shelves of vinyl. The next room is where he finds Pete, curled under a pile of blankets. 

Frank sits on the edge and places his hand on Pete’s shoulder, shaking him a little. “Pete?”

“Tell Trick I don’t need a babysitter,” Pete grumbles, burrowing further into the blankets. 

Frank purses his lips and nods. “Yeah, he knows that. He just asked me to bring you some lunch,” he says, “And I think you’ll feel a bit better if you get up and try to eat.”

Pete doesn’t move and at first Frank isn’t sure what to do. But then he remembers the talk he had with Pete outside the poetry slam where Pete said things didn’t make sense in his head because there was no shape to them. So, Frank kicks off his shoes and curls around the Pete/blanket blob in the middle of the bed before slipping his hand under the blankets to find Pete’s hands. 

“What are you doing?”

Frank squeezes Pete’s fingers, before working his way down to press his thumb into his palm and then rolls Pete’s wrists in his hands. “Giving you shape.”

Pete doesn’t object to that, probably because it sounds like something very Pete-like, so Frank keeps rubbing his hands until he manages to coax Pete out of the blankets and he works his way down to Pete’s shoulders. 

“Geez,” Pete breathes, “I think you missed your calling. You should be a masseuse.”

Frank huffs a laugh and shakes his head, “Nah, I save my massage skills for special people only.”

Pete hums at that and eventually he manages to sit up against the pillows, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes and sighing. 

“What’s up?” Frank asks, situating himself to sit next to Pete. 

Pete opens his mouth, but closes it like he’s not quite sure what to say. And Frank wants to press further, wants to know what the issue is so that they can fix it like he did for Patrick. Patrick needed more help at the diner? Easy, Frank called Ray who wasn’t working for Brian today. 

“Yeah,” Ray had agreed quickly, “Waiting tables can’t be that different from delivering pizzas.”

And Frank’s not quite sure if that’s really true, but the relief that washed over Patrick’s face was enough for him to feel confident that the two of them would make it work while Frank went to take care of Pete.

Pete’s problem wasn’t as easy as Patrick’s. And he knew that if Pete couldn’t even put it into words, then there was no way that Frank was going to be able to solve this one. But he couldn’t just do nothing, so he reached out and wrapped an arm around Pete’s shoulders. 

Which was apparently the right thing to do, because Pete crumbled into him and laid his head against Frank’s chest. And Frank knows that he should probably get Pete to eat since that’s the reason Patrick sent him over in the first place, but Frank’s not sure getting Pete to do much of anything but breathe is going to happen. 

But he’s not hiding in his blankets, so Frank’s going to take that as a win. 

It’s just that...Frank’s not used to feeling so useless before. He’s sure that he should be doing more than just holding Pete while he tries to find the energy to get out of this bed. He wonders if maybe it’d be better if he did Pete and Patrick’s laundry or something, something to ease the burden of what they’re already carrying. Or he could finish cleaning the apartment because he thinks it helps to have a nice looking--

Fuck. 

Frank hugs Pete tighter and presses his face into his hair because this fucking sucks. This is exactly how it’s going to be with Gerard. There’s going to be times where he’s not going to be able to do anything but watch Gerard have his freakouts. Times where he’s going to get frustrated with the fact that Gerard asks him multiple times a day to check his pulse because he’s scared he’s going to have  Tachycardia. Times where Frank isn’t going to be fine with just sitting in Gerard’s basement all day instead of going out to a show or just drive around and listen to music. There’s going to be a point where Frank is going to worry that Gerard is never going to get better, that he’s not going to  _ want _ to get better.

And he feels like an asshole for thinking that. 

But Frank had asked Mikey once if Gerard ever saw anyone about his anxiety and Mikey had gotten all huffy. “No, we don’t have the insurance and it’s not like Gerard’s going to leave the house to go to a therapist’s office anyway.”

It just seemed like a vicious cycle that Frank wasn’t sure how to break, wasn’t sure if he was even allowed to break. Because that was another issue that Frank hadn’t let himself examine too closely. 

“Hey.”

Frank looks up and sees Mikey shrugging off a jacket and coming to lay on the other side of Pete. Pete hums contently as Mikey wraps his arms around his middle and shifts them so that Mikey can rest his head on Frank’s shoulder. 

Frank relaxes into the group hug for a few moments, letting the weight of the two of them ground him back into his body instead of up into the dark cloud of worry over Gerard and what the state of their relationship is supposed to look like. He listens to their breathing sync up and can’t help but smile at that.

*

Frank can’t believe he’s taking Hambone’s advice seriously, but it gets Gerard to look at him with consideration. 

“For how long?” He asks. 

“I’ll match you minute for minute,” Frank bargines, smirking at the gears clearly turning in the back of Gerard’s mind. 

“And I just have to sit on the porch?”

“On the steps, closer to the street,” Frank amends and watches Gerard wince a bit at that. 

He shifts, rocking his weight from one foot to the other before sighing and saying, “Fine.”

Frank can’t believe that actually worked, and he’s going to have to buy Hambone a case of really nice beer or something, holy fuck. He takes Gerard’s hand before he can second guess himself and leads him quickly up the steps and to the front door. 

Gerard pulls back and stares at the door like it’s the gates of Hell. 

“You’ve gone out before,” Frank reasons.

“I was a bit focused,” Gerard points out. 

Frank grins. “Focus on my sweet mouth on your cock.”

Gerard rolls his eyes, but reaches out to turn the handle. He pulls back again when they get onto the porch. Frank’s seen Gerard stand on the porch before, so he’s not surprised that Gerard has at least made it to this point. 

Gerard looks down the street and frowns. Frank turns to see what he’s looking at, and he really can’t see what’s the matter. It’s the middle of a weekday, so there really isn’t much activity on Gerard’s street at the moment. There’s an old man sitting on his porch a few houses down and a young mom with her toddler playing in the yard even further down. He sees a car pass by, but other than that, it’s pretty quiet. 

“Come on,” Frank says, tugging on Gerard’s hand and pulling him down the steps of the porch and to the step that he and Brian had fixed--or, really, Brian fixed on his own. Frank sits down and coaxes Gerard to sit on the step below him, resting back between Frank’s legs. Frank wraps his arms around Gerard’s shoulders and murmurs, “See? Not so bad.”

But he can feel how rigid Gerard’s shoulders are and when he slides his hand down to Gerard’s chest, he can feel his heart hammering away. 

Frank frowns and cups Gerard’s chin, nudging it up so that he’s looking at Frank. “What are you worried about?” He asks, stroking Gerard’s cheek. 

“A stray bullet,” Gerard says automatically, “a drunk driver hitting us, a rabid dog running over and biting us, asteroid--”

“Asteroid?” Frank teases. 

Gerard smiles a little at that one, “Maybe not an asteroid. But more than anything, it’s just that I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

Frank leans down to kiss his forehead. “Ok, but that’s everywhere.”

“Exactly,” Gerard breathes.

Frank keeps stroking his cheeks, running his fingers through his hair, trailing touches down his throat. 

“You help,” Gerard whispers, closing his eyes and taking in a deep breath. Frank kisses each of his eyelids before Gerard opens them, smiles, then sits up straight to stare down the street. “Mikey crashed into that light pole,” he says, pointing to the light pole a bit down the road, near the stop sign. “He was pedaling too fast and his feet slipped off the pedals. It was one of those bikes where you push backwards on the pedals to stop? And, anyway, he freaked out and just let himself hit the pole.”

Frank’s not really sure if the story has a point, or if Gerard is trying to distract himself, but he doesn’t think it’s a good idea to interrupt either way.

“He’s always been like that,” Gerard says, “He gets scared too, but he just lets things happen to him. I wouldn’t touch my bike for weeks after his accident, and it didn’t even happen to me. Mikey had one of his teeth knocked out, but he went right back out after the bleeding stopped.”

Frank snorts. “Sounds like MIkey.”

Gerard smiles and shakes his head, looking down at the fixed step. He reaches down and touches where the newer wood meets the rotting one. “You never told me why you fixed the step.”

“I kept tripping whenever I brought you pizza,” Frank says, trying to make light of the situation. 

Gerard doesn’t look at him, but Frank feels like he’s pinned in place by his gaze still as he stares at the step. “I think you can’t stand to see things broken.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Not Like Tremors ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/574546) is a breathplay fic. If you’ve read my fic These Are the Days Like Crazy Rain, then you know how much I like kinky shit that plays heavy on emotions and is a bit fluffy. This is one of those fics.
> 
> [Once You Walked This Kind of Life ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/754326) is such a gorgeous fic about soul bonds. It always hits me really hard in the feels, so I tend to not read it as much as it probably deserves. I suggest listening to Kids of Yesterday e to get the maximum ouch effect. 
> 
> [Blue Plate Special ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19204528) is one of those gritty found family fics that I love so much. Please mind the tags if you decide to give this one a go. It is really beautifully written (as is everything Arsenic writes) and one that makes me think after I’ve finished reading it.


	12. Chapter 12

Frank knows it’s going to be a bad day when Gerard tightens his limbs around Frank like an octopus. “Stay.”

And normally this wouldn’t be an indication of a bad day. If anything, it would be the start of a  _ very good _ day. But it’s the way Gerard’s voice sounds too frail to pack a punch, too weak to be able to squeeze Frank’s heart the way it clearly does. 

Frank turns in Gerard’s arms, shifting his legs into a more comfortable tangle with Gerard’s, and hugs him to his chest. Most mornings--or afternoons really--Frank wakes up in Gerard’s bed and after some coaxing kisses and promises of coffee, he’ll manage to get Gerard up and moving around before he heads into his shift. There’s been days where the day seems too bright and overwhelming for Gerard to handle, so Frank will cover him back up with blankets and put on  _ Siamese Dream _ on repeat before heading out. But Frank hasn’t really seen Gerard have a bad day yet. 

He’s not stupid. He knows that getting into a relationship isn’t a cure all for anyone, but his childish heart sinks a little when he looks down at Gerard’s creased forehead and frown. Because he doesn’t have a way to fix this. Not really. 

“Few more minutes,” Frank compromises, hugging Gerard tighter and starting to think of some excuses to throw at Brian when he got in late. 

A few minutes turns into fifteen and Frank peppers Gerard’s forehead and cheeks with kisses as if it could distract him from the fact he’s leaving. Gerard just burrows further under the blankets until only the top of his messy black hair is visible. Frank sighs and smoothes a hand over the blanket, rubbing Gerard’s back. “I’ll be back as soon as my shift is over, ok? And you can call me if you need to.”

“Okay,” Gerard says, and Frank winces a bit at how fake the chipper cadence of his voice sounds. 

But Frank doesn’t call him out on it, he just drags himself out of bed and moves around the room quickly to grab a pair of jeans off the floor and a work shirt from the closet before hurrying up the stairs. Frank makes a stop in the bathroom to brush his teeth, reminding himself that he should pick up toothpaste on his way home--to the Way house. He tosses his toothbrush back into the cup that holds Gerard’s and Mikey’s and stands there while the room spins a little. 

It’s not that he hadn’t been aware that he was spending a lot of time here, but he thought he made a pretty good effort to not treat this house like his home. Which, ok, now that Frank was thinking about it, was complete horseshit. The toothbrush, sure, he could write off as just being hygienic and most boyfriends have a toothbrush hanging out in their significant other’s bathroom. It’s fine. But the collection of work attire in Gerard’s closet or the fact that he’s got a carton of soy milk in the fridge downstairs might be pushing it. And then there’s the fact that Frank’s started picking up household items from the store when he’s out--or worse, he’ll make special trips to the store just for the Way house. He went out of his way to stock the Ways’ laundry room with fabric softener and detergent because apparently Mikey had just been pouring bubble bath soap in the washer to wash their clothes. 

The more he’s thinking about it, the more he’s realizing that he hasn’t been home much except to grab more clothes from his closet or pick up some CDs he wanted to show Mikey. And his mom has been making jokes about Frank moving out, but he just assumed she was just giving him shit because that’s what parents do with kids his age. 

Frank hurries out of the bathroom and grabs his travel mug that Gerard had covered in Lisa Frank stickers before filling it with the coffee that Mikey had left in the pot. He glances at the schedule on the fridge and frowns when he sees that Mikey isn’t going to be coming home anytime soon since he’s got class all afternoon and a shift at the diner later tonight. 

Frank debates texting Mikey a heads up about Gerard, but thinks it’ll probably only worry him and then he’ll have two distressed Ways on his hands. Instead he makes a plan to text him after Frank’s checked back in with Gerard later today. 

When he gets into his car, he frowns at the time on his dash because Brian is seriously going to kick his ass when he gets to work. So, Frank prepares himself with an extra cigarette as he manages to hit every fucking red light on the way to work.

“Frankie, thank God you’re here,” Brian says, and Frank holds back the laugh that’s bubbling to his lips when he sees that Brian has flour in his hair. “Kyle quit.”

“Fucking finally!” Frank cheers and he beams over Brian’s shoulder at Hambone who gives him a wink. 

“Yeah, except that we’re short tonight and for some reason, everyone and their grandmother is ordering pizza,” Brian says, spreading dough out on a pizza pan, “So I sorta need you to work a double tonight.”

Frank sighs dramatically. 

“Ray’s working a show apparently and Mikey is at the diner, you’re it, kid,” Brian says.

“What am I?” Hambone asks, “Chopped liver?”

“No, you’re also working a double.”

“This is child labor abuse,” Hambone mutters.

“You’re twenty--you know what? I’m not even going to go there,” Brian mutters, “Stop talking and start chopping onions.”

“See? You just want me to cry. You’re a masochist.”

“No, that’d be a sadist,” Brian clarifies then shakes his head when Hambone and Frank cackle in laughter, “Get to work you slackers.”

Frank pulls out his phone when he heads out for his first set of deliveries. He’s got a cigarette hanging out of his lips as he listens for the call to connect. When he gets Gerard’s voicemail, Frank sighs and leaves a quick, “Hey, just checking in. Call me when you can.”

He probably just went back to sleep or his phone is upstairs and Gerard didn’t hear it ring. Or he’s curled up in his bed too afraid to move. Fuck. Frank stares at the time and wonders if he’d be able to swing by in between deliveries at some point tonight to check in on him. 

He dials Ray’s number and greets him with a “you fucker.”

Ray laughs. “Yeah, Brian already called to try to get me to come in. Trust me, I sorta rather be there than here.”

Frank cringes when he hears a noise screech through the phone that was probably supposed to be a guitar. “Jesus, do those kids even know how to play their instruments? How’d they get a gig?”

“It’s who you know,” Ray points out and Frank rolls his eyes. He fucking hates the scene sometimes. “And their parents probably paid the venue to have them play. They’re wearing polos.”

“Fuck,” Frank laughs, then more seriously, “I think I’m living with the Ways.”

“You think?”

“Yeah, I don’t know, I just…” Frank trails off and stares off at the red light he’s sitting at, “I’m not really sure how I feel about that.”

“Why?”

Because then things are more serious. Frank knows they were serious already, but there’s pressure in living with someone. In having someone rely on you, to have a rotation on the grocery shopping errand and his schedule posted up on the fridge under Mikey’s. He’s got a responsibility and it’s not that he doesn’t want it, it’s that he’s afraid he’s going to fuck it up. Because it’s one thing to want to help out. One thing to fix a step or coax Gerard outside with a teasing blowjob. But it is entirely different when something is expected of him now.

“I don’t know, it’s weird,” Frank brushes it off, “Sorta fucked with my head. But hey, I’m pulling up on a house. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Later, Frankie.”

*

It’s pushing midnight when Frank finally gets out of work with only a couple of burns on his hands from melted cheese, just another example of how much dairy hates him. He hasn’t had time since the beginning of his shift to give Gerard another call, so he pulls out his phone but before he can put the call through, it lights up with Ray’s name. 

Frank frowns and answers. “Hey man, what’s up?”

“Can you come over for a bit and watch me drink myself to oblivion?” 

“Um…” Frank stalls, but he’s already turning down the opposite way down the road that will take him to Ray’s place. 

“So this is when I tell you that I applied to film school again and I didn’t get in,” Ray mumbles. 

“Oh,” Frank sighs, sounding like all the air just poured out of his lungs, “Fuck, Ray. I’m sorry. Yeah, I’m on my way. I’ll stop for whiskey.”

“Knew we were friends for a reason,” Ray chuckles, and then the line goes dead. 

Frank tries to give Gerard another call but ends up leaving another voicemail, “Hey, Gee, Ray got some bad news so I’m going to check in on him before I head home. Mikey should be home with you though now, right? Call me” and Frank hesitates, feeling something antsy dancing up his throat that makes him want to say ‘love you’ but he doesn’t. Instead he just hangs up and turns into the liquor store parking lot at the corner of Ray’s folks’ neighborhood. 

When they were kids, he and Ray used to hang out in the parking lot with their skateboards and ask college kids to buy them piss poor beer that they’d spend all week trying to save up for. On good days they’d get drunk in the park by Frank’s house and on shitty days, they’d buy slushies and chips before climbing up the stairs to Ray’s room and playing video games until their fingers went numb. So maybe those days weren’t so shitty now that Frank’s thinking about it. 

Frank sees a group of teenagers leaning against the ice cooler with lit cigarettes and nervous smiles. Frank thinks maybe he ought to pay it forward, but then thinks maybe half the fun of standing in a liquor store parking lot wasn’t actually getting drunk. 

When he shows up to Ray’s house, his mom hugs him like Frank’s her kid too and tells him there’s macaroni bake on the stove if he’s hungry. Frank smiles politely instead of reminding her how detrimental cheese is to his system, and heads up the stairs up to Ray’s bedroom. Both of his brothers have already moved out, and he knows that wounds Ray’s pride a bit--but the plus side of that is that Ray finally has the best bedroom.

“Hey,” Frank grins, walking in and seeing Ray hanging upside down off the bed, “I got the good stuff.”

Ray holds his hand out for the bottle of whiskey and Frank laughs. “I don’t think hanging upside and drinking is a great idea. Just saying.”

Ray snorts. “That’s rich, coming from you.”

“I’m not nearly as wild as I used to be,” Frank insists, sitting next to Ray on his bed. 

Ray sits up and takes the whiskey, unscrewing the cap and taking a long pull from the bottle. “What the fuck are we doing, Frankie?” Ray breathes, then takes another drink. 

Frank puts a hand on Ray’s back and rubs absentmindedly. “I don’t know, bud. Just trying I guess?”

Ray snorts and takes another drink, wincing and Frank knows Ray’s going to have one hell of a hangover at the rate he’s going. Ray holds out the bottle, but Frank shakes his head. “Nah, I gotta drive home still.”

“Good for you,” Ray hums, leaning against Frank, “I’m happy you found Gerard.” 

But Frank feels the way Ray is holding himself tense and Frank moves his hand off Ray’s back to wrap his arm around him. “You’re still my best guy,” Frank teases and when Ray laughs and Frank feels him relax a bit more, he says more seriously, “I’m not leaving you behind. You know that right?”

Ray nods. “I just wish I’d get to the starting line, you know?”

“S’not a race,” Frank points out. 

“Yeah, because I’m nowhere near running,” Ray counters, “I’m like, stumbling and then I get lost and go in the opposite direction or something.”

“Because you didn’t get into film school?”

“Because I don’t know what else I’m supposed to be doing,” Ray says, taking another drink from the whiskey bottle, then another. 

Frank frowns, because Ray doesn’t let himself get like this very often. He’s always the mom of their friend group. He’s the one who tells Frank and Hambone to keep their chins up. That all they have to do in life is try really hard and be good people. But Ray’s just like everyone else, and his prevalent smile is just as big of a security blanket as the one that Frank used to cover Gerard this morning. 

“What you’re supposed to be doing is getting drunk and letting me kick your ass in Mortal Kombat,” Frank says, grinning when Ray hiccups a laugh, “And then you nurse your hangover tomorrow and maybe in a couple days think about applying to some more schools. Because I doubt every school in this country is stupid enough to reject you.”

“You sure you’re not drunk?” Ray asks, “Because there’s no way you’re beating me at Mortal Kombat.”

*

“Frank?” His mom asks when Frank answers the phone as he’s slipping Ray’s shoes off and tucking him into bed. 

“Mom?” Frank asks, “What time is it? Are you alright?”

“Can”--he hears her huff and it sounds oddly like she’s trying not to cry, which is just something that makes Frank stumble a bit as he makes his way out of Ray’s bedroom-- “Can you pick me up?”

Instead of embarrassing her, or maybe instead of asking a question he just really doesn’t want to know the answer to, he says, “Of course. Where are you?”

He checks his phone and winces when he still hasn’t gotten a call from Gerard. It’s just past one thirty in the morning and Frank’s at least comforted in the fact that Mikey has to be home by now and Gerard isn’t alone. But then his blood starts to boil when he realizes what’s happened to his mom for her to be calling him this late at night from a gas station. 

“What’s his name?” Frank demands when his mom slides into the passenger seat. 

Her makeup is smeared and her hair is tumbling out of the updo she probably spent too long trying perfect. “It’s fine, Frank, I just want to go home.”

“Do I need to call the cops?” Frank breathes, hearing his heart pounding in his head. 

“No,” she assures him, “He was just an asshole and I asked him to let me out of the car.”

Frank’s knuckles are white on the steering wheel, but he gets himself to turn out of the gas station parking lot, because he knows what it’s like to linger at the scene of the crime. He knows that his mom is probably waiting until she’s behind her own bedroom door to break down the way she needs to. And for a sick moment, Frank wonders if she ever gets tired of it. If she realizes that she just picks the wrong guys time and time again, and that maybe she should just give up trying. 

And then as he turns down the road that passes Frank’s old elementary school, he wonders if this is the fate for everyone. Most of his friends’ parents are divorced, or hell, some of them were never married. Frank hardly even remembers his father, but he knows that he was Prince Charming to his mom once upon a time. He’s seen the photos of them together when he’s snooped through old boxes stored in the dusty crevices of the basement. They’re just ghosts of memories now, living in their basement where his mom’s dimming smile can’t haunt her anymore. 

It just really makes him ache to know that she was so blissfully happy so long ago. That she’s capable of such happiness, and now all she’s able to omit is this scuffed up version of herself that’s been tossed around too many times. And he’s pissed that she’d be so reckless with her heart like this.

He hears her sniffles and reaches out to turn up his radio, letting the guitars drown out her sadness so that she has some illusion of privacy. He knows it’s not fair to blame her, that of course she doesn’t want to be alone. He wishes that he was eight years old again and she looked strong to him--even if he knew better--the make-believe was enough to keep his childish heart appeased. Now all he sees is a brittle smile and greying hair.

“I can stay tonight,” Frank says as they pull up to the house, “We can watch Steel Magnolias.”

Linda turns and smiles at him and reaches out to pat his cheek. “You’re a good kid, Frankie, but I’m fine. I just want to go to bed.”

He sees the lie there, but he also knows that he needs to check on Gerard. And there’s this tearing feeling in his chest, where it feels like his heart is just getting shredded into different directions. He can’t keep up. 

He doesn’t remember the world being this broken when he was a kid, doesn’t remember feeling like he had to scramble around to hold up the people he cared about. It’s exhausting, and for a heart-squeezing moment, he just wants to follow his mom inside and fall asleep with her on the couch with a sad chick flick on in the background. 

“I’ll come by tomorrow,” Frank says, clearing his voice when he hears how hoarse it is. 

She smiles, but it feels hollow and a bit bitter. Like she’s just realizing that her kid is growing up. 

He sits in his car for a long time after she’s already gone inside, feeling drained and wondering if maybe he can just fall asleep in his car where he feels safe. But he glances at the time and pulls away from his house so he can get back to Gerard. 

When he gets to the house, his stomach drops when he realizes Mikey’s car isn’t in the driveway. “Fuck,” he mutters, hurrying out of the car and pulling out the spare key he keeps in his wallet. He really needs to make himself a permanent copy at this point. 

It’s quiet in the house. Frank scans the main level as he works his way to the basement, and it doesn’t even look like Gerard’s gone upstairs all day. Usually there’s some evidence of life when he gets home. A plate on the coffee table, cigarettes in the ashtray on the kitchen table, coffee sitting in the pot by the sink. When he gets to the top of the basement stairs he hears  _ Siamese Dream _ still playing. 

“Gee?” Frank asks, just so Gerard knows it’s him coming down the steps and not an axe murderer or something. 

He’s still bundled in the blankets on the bed. Frank crawls onto the mattress and pulls Gerard to him, tucking his head under his chin. He feels Gerard’s tense muscles release, like he’s been wound up all day waiting for Frank to come back.

“I’ve got you,” Frank murmurs, stroking a hand down Gerard’s back. He feels Gerard start to tremble, and then feels the wetness against his neck. He hugs him tighter, throat closing up and his eyes growing hot because he doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t know what to do for anyone, and he thinks he’s about to let everyone fall off his shoulders. Thinks he’s going to collapse under all the weight and he’s going to bring everyone down. 

*

Frank isn’t sure how long he’s been sitting on the floor of the kitchen, but when he hears the front door open, he notices that the sky outside is starting to lighten. He listens to Mikey drop his keys into the dish by the front door, hears his heavy boots creak the wooden floors as he makes his way to the kitchen. 

“Jesus,” Mikey breathes, putting his hand up to his chest, “You scared the shit out of me.” 

Frank nods and grabs another cigarette out of his pack and lights up, making a half assed promise to himself that he’ll sweep up all the ash from the chain smoking whenever he finds the strength to get off the floor. 

“Frank?” Mikey asks, taking a tentative step towards him. 

Frank breathes out a laugh, it sounding weightless and mixing with the smoke that drifts up to the ceiling. “Gee had a bad day,” he says, and it should bother him that his voice sounds so disconnected to his body. It doesn’t even sound like himself, it--it sorta reminds him of hearing his voice on an answering machine where the speakers have garbled up his words. 

“Ok,” Mikey says softly, “Is he ok or do I--”

“He’s asleep now,” Frank continues, taking a drag and then ashing on the floor, “I was going to call you but it slipped my mind. And that’s fucked, I know, I should have--”

“It’s alright, Frank.”

“But I just,” Frank huffs, laughing and reaching up to pull on his hair. God, he needs a haircut. He can’t remember when he last got a haircut. How is it possible that it feels like he’s not doing anything all day, but still doesn’t have the time to do things like get a haircut? “I had to work a double because Kyle quit, which is awesome since that guy sucks but I couldn’t stop by to check on Gerard.”

“He’s been home alone before,” Mikey assures him, but it doesn’t make Frank feel any better. 

“He was scared and he didn’t want me to leave,” Frank mutters, then sighs, “And I was going to come over as soon as I got off, but Ray called me because he didn’t get into this film school he apparently applied for. I didn’t even know he wanted to go back to school, but I mean it makes sense right? Ray’s the most ambitious person I know, it doesn’t make sense for him to stick around this fucking town and deliever pizzas for the rest of his life.”

Mikey sits in front of him and rests his hands on Frank’s knees, staring at Frank like he’s telling Mikey he’s the one whose life is falling apart. “But he didn’t get in and now he’s going to be stuck here with people like me”--Mikey’s eyes narrow, but Frank continues-- “I love my home, I really do. But you’re supposed to leave, Mikes. You’re supposed to go see things, right? And do something, and then you come back and you tell everyone what you’ve been up to and they smile and maybe you go to the elementary school and tell kids that you’re some success story and they can be you if they just keep going to school.”

And Frank knows he’s not making any fucking sense, but Mikey just nods like everything is clicking perfectly. He pulls Frank’s cigarette out of his mouth and takes a drag as Frank continues, “And if anyone deserves that, it’s Ray. But even Ray, fucking  _ Ray _ , isn’t good enough and just...if that’s the case then why the fuck do I even bother?”

“Frank--”

“But,” Frank says, and he sniffles because his nose is starting to run, and hey, when the fuck did he start crying? “It’s not about me. It’s the fact that my best friend is hurting and all I could do was bring him some whiskey and play video games with him until he passed out.”

“I’m sure he appreciated that,” Mikey whispers, handing Frank back his cigarette.

“I just,” Frank breathes heavily, “I hate how everyone...how no one can catch a break, you know? Everyone is so broken all the time and I can’t...I just can’t--”

“Can’t what, Frankie?”

“It’s Ray, and then my mom and her stupid fucking taste in men. And you,” Frank says, starting to feel angry. He jabs a finger into Mikey’s chest. “ _ You _ ”--he laughs bitterly-- “You work yourself down to the bone, and then some. And you’ve got Patrick on your back because Patrick’s Patrick and he likes to pretend that he’s the most emotionally mature of all of us, but he can’t show that he cares about someone without yelling at them. And that’s a special kind of hurting that must be going on in his heart for that to happen.”

“Frank--”

“But you work two jobs to keep this house running because it was your parents’ and it’s the last thing you have of them. So of course you’re not going to let it go even though you can’t fucking afford it. But you can’t drop out of school either can you?” Frank spits out, “Because that’s the one thing you’re doing for yourself and it should be a good thing, but you’re failing out because you don’t have time to study and I bet you’re only staying in your classes now out of spite.”

Mikey doesn’t say anything this time, just watches him with the saddest expression Frank has ever seen Mikey wear. 

“And you’re breaking Pete’s heart in the meantime. But he just can’t help but love you. And Pete...Pete doesn’t fucking know what’s good for him, because if he had any ounce of self-esteem, he’d dump your ass, Mikey Way. And I say that as both of your friends, because you two just hurt each other,” he continues, then he feels a sob rip from his heart. And it  _ hurts _ , it fucking hurts more than Frank thinks he’s ever been through. “I just don’t understand why people put themselves through this if it hurts. I don’t--I don’t fucking, it’s--”

“Alright, Frankie,” Mikey says, pulling Frank into his arms. 

Mikey’s arms are boney and his hip is digging into Frank’s thigh, but Frank can’t help but cling to him. “I hate that I love your brother,” he says wetly against Mikey’s chest, like he can hide it into Mikey’s jacket and pretend his heart could never be that ugly. 

Mikey doesn’t tell him off though, he just hugs him tighter and tucks Frank’s head under his pointy chin. There’s an irrational part of Frank that fights against Mikey, that tries to pull away and wipe at his eyes because he’s supposed to be the one who has this all together. He’s supposed to be the one who hugs his mom after a break up, helps Mikey overcome his fear of driving, assures Hambone his happiness is valid, keeps Patrick from overworking himself, coaxes Pete out of bed, gives Ray a listening ear, and saves Gerard from whatever it is that’s eating him alive in this house. 

But Mikey just hauls him back in his arms and tightens his grip on him. “Let it out, sweetie,” he says. 

Frank has never liked to cry. And it’s not even because of the stupid gender sterotype thing that makes everyone think men aren’t supposed to cry. It’s because it hurts. Every single time, it feels like the tears are razor blades cutting down his cheeks, feels like each sob is breaking his ribs as it shoves its way out of Frank’s body. 

_ It’s because you keep it inside for too long _ , he thinks, he lets all this hurt percolate in his body until it can’t stand to be contained anymore. 

Mikey doesn’t say anything else, he just rubs his hands down Frank’s back like he’s trying to coax the sobs out. And at first Frank is pissed about it, pissed that Mikey is just letting him sit here on the floor and  _ hurt _ . But after a while, it stops hurting and becomes something cathartic. 

He’s worn out. He’s draped over Mikey, and he wonders how someone who looks so frail is able to keep Frank up like this. He’s mostly just hiccuping wetly now, his voice getting tangled with tears. But something in him loosens. He hadn’t realized how tense he’d been holding himself until he feels the last of his muscles relax, and he wonders how long he’d been keeping himself pulled taut like a bow. 

Mikey doesn’t ask if he feels better, doesn’t even try to get them off the floor once Frank quiets down completely. He keeps his arms around Frank, so Frank closes his eyes and listens to the steady cadence of Mikey’s breathing. Listens to soft steps coming into the kitchen and then the floor creaking as he feels Gerard sit down next to them. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oversharing moment, please feel free to skip down to the recs: I mentioned on Twitter that this chapter has taken me awhile to write (I think it’s been about a month) because it was so emotionally draining. Writing Frank’s breakdown at the end, was so hard for me because I’ve been there. I think we all have. One of the hardest thing I’ve gone through in my 20s is shedding that selfishness you have when you’re a teenager. And I’m not saying selfish in a bad way, there’s just this state of mind you’re in as a teenager where you can’t think past your own pain. Your mental health, your situation, the daily personalized hurts of life are all you really can comprehend at that stage of life. But when you hit your 20s, the veil sort of drops and you start to see that everyone around you is hurting. You start to realize your friends don’t have it all together like you thought they did, your parents start to become human instead of your heroes, and everything starts to snowball until you’re just as wound up as Frank is here. Or at least, that’s been my experience. 
> 
> Anyway, next chapter will be more healing. Frank for sure needs it. 
> 
> Here’s what I’ve been reading lately:
> 
> [Adaptable to Change](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19081828) is another Arsenic fic that I adore. This writer just has such a great way of really ripping your heart to shreds and then putting it back together at the end. Each story of theirs feels like an intense therapy session. Please mind the tags with this one, it is a rape recovery story. It’s also not a popular pairing, but I implore you to give it a try as long as the tags aren’t going to harm you. 
> 
> [Somersault on the Sawdust](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18549976) is a BEAUTIFUL Summer of Like fic. But it’s not the pairing you’re expecting. I’ve been into reading rare pairs lately, can you tell? Anyway, Frank’s character in this is amazing and I was super skeptical about this pair...but it really works in this fic in my opinion.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [tumblr](https://throwupsparkles.tumblr.com/) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/throwupsparkle).


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